Better Perl

[Iain Barnett]

On 6 Apr 2008, at 9:13 pm, Nicholas Clark wrote:
>
> So we have perlbuzz.org, perl.org *and* perlfoundation.org. Maybe  
> this is part
> of the problem.


On 6 Apr 2008, at 10:13 pm, Zbigniew Lukasiak wrote:
>
>
> And another interesting initiative:
> http://perlbuzz.com/2008/04/rethinking-the-interface-to-cpan.html.
>

That is a very interesting link.

Personally, I'm all for making CPAN a RESTful interface and then I  
could run my own GUI over the top, and kill the 90's visuals. I don't  
see a problem with having many sites, just the fact that all the  
current sites look like they still get most of their traffic through  
Gopher[1]. What is (not) going on with PerlMonks?????! [2]


On 6 Apr 2008, at 9:24 pm, Jonathan Tweed wrote:
>
> But enough talking. What can we do about it? Will The Perl  
> Foundation pay for new sites? If not, why not?
>

I'd also suggest:

- Eat some humble pie: call Perl6 "PerlN" or "PerlDev" or *something*  
that isn't Perl6 (like the Strawberry and Vanilla perl - cool names,  
too). Then take as much as possible from it and put it into the  
current release and stick out a Perl6. Finally.

- Do what Apple have done with their business model (and M$ with  
their developer support) - which is produce a vertical model for  
perl. So newbies can get started within minutes, no /(f|m)ucking/  
around with the command line. The advanced people are more advanced  
and can just get on with it.

- Do what M$ do very well, and improve the documentation for CPAN  
modules. Perhaps add ratings for the completeness of docs? It's a  
failing of open source projects generally, and perl stuff certainly  
isn't immune. [3]

- Build a proper IDE (yes, yes, "we don't need a GUI", blah blah. No,  
*you* don't need a GUI, but you're stuck in a time warp), and make it  
free, and good looking. [4]

- Stop listening to people who proclaim Perl to be the best language  
ever, a bit like Liverpool supporters do about Liverpool. It's 17  
years since a league title and they are still banging on. Things have  
moved on, it's catch up time. [4]

- Cut the sneering at Web 2.0 and Ajax. They're cool *and* it makes  
things easier. Get over it. Again, it's not 1999 and we don't all  
read our websites using Lynx and wget. [5]

- Take Windows more seriously. It's a huge chunk of the market, and  
all this snootiness is just bollocks. Python seems to work better on  
it, why is that? Why can't I get a _simple_ DBI interface to SQL  
Server that isn't ODBC? [6]

- Perhaps TPF needs to hire a communications/PR expert? The Arctic  
Monkeys did it before they got a record deal, so it's not uncool  
anymore ;)  [7]


A big problem is that so much power in perl comes from regex, and  
regex looks horrible and is difficult for newbies. I have no  
suggestions for that.

Iain

[1] For those that don't know/remember
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)

[2] Answer: design. http://www.perlmonks.org/  vs http:// 
www.railsforum.com/  is like Oasis vs Arctic Monkeys - more than 10  
years out of date.

[3] http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/default.aspx vs http:// 
www.cpan.org/ - so many more examples of *actual use* on MSDN, not  
just method signatures, and it looks better

[4] http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html  
- not number 1. Not even top 4 (more of a Tottenham at the mo, good  
attack, poor defence :)

[5] http://maps.google.co.uk/ vs http://www.streetmap.co.uk/

[6] http://search.cpan.org/src/SOMMAR/Win32-SqlServer-2.002/Win32- 
SqlServer.html - quick? No, it might be good but I had to read too  
many docs and just took too long - to connect to one of the big 3 RDBMS!

[7] http://www.alastaircampbelldiaries.co.uk/index.html ;)