Better Perl

[Jonathan Tweed]

On 6 Apr 2008, at 21:13, Nicholas Clark wrote:

> It may not be just Python and Ruby. I think that there was also the  
> the
> problem that post 2001 some people kept liking Perl, so were  
> prepared to be
> paid less to work on Perl, with the result that many Perl jobs paid  
> less
> (and were able to pay less) than than (say) Java jobs to get the same
> calibre of person. So people don't go into Perl for the money,  
> which also
> reduces the talent pool.

Ah that makes sense. I'm pretty new to this game. 2001 is before my  
time ;-)

> I know that the Birmingham.pm world tour included UKUUG this year,  
> and there
> were a lot of Perl talks. Also OSCON's Perl track (and talks) are  
> looking
> stronger this year than last year.
>
> I guess that part of the problem is that the Perl community is too  
> damn good
> at putting on Perl conferences and workshops, so most people are  
> satisfied
> (often in their native languages) by these.

Very true. The Perl conferences I've been too have been fantastic.

> Maybe we should get less good at this :-)
> But then we can't put that as a plus point of Perl.

I know you're joking but definitely not! It is a major plus point to  
have such consistently good, well organised events.

>> A  Windows download that doesn't take you to a commercial site  
>> that puts
>> the free downloads right at the bottom of the page under a whole load
>> of pay for products.
>
> This may be viable to change now, thanks to Adam Kennedy's work on  
> Strawberry
> and Vanilla Perl.

The Strawberry Perl site gets a lot of things right, but it would  
definitely be best if it wasn't a separate site.

> So we have perlbuzz.org, perl.org *and* perlfoundation.org. Maybe  
> this is part
> of the problem.

I think it is. A new perl.org that combines the best bits of all  
three would be fantastic and something I'd love to get involved with.  
I suspect this isn't the right list for those discussions. Which  
would be the right one?

Cheers
Jonathan