Perl publishing and attracting new developers

[Jason Clifford]

On 2013-09-18 15:22, gvim wrote:
> My question was about what others perceive to be the reasons for the
> dearth of Perl books and the lack of range in subject matter compared
> with the proliferation of new titles in the Ruby and Python
> communities.

I wonder whether part of the answer to this question lies in the fact 
that the things that could be covered in Perl books about frameworks, 
Moose, etc are fairly well documented and that the documentation is 
easily available.

Why should I spend money on books which wont necessarily contain 
anything that I cannot already get more conveniently and at less expense 
by reading the POD?

This is not to say that the above means there is no possible demand for 
such new books but it *may* mean that a large part of the potential 
market (ie those already using Perl) wont be interested.

> These considerations also apply to Ruby and Python authors but it
> hasn't stopped them pumping them out by the barrel-load.

Is the easily available and free documentation for those languages as 
good as that available for Perl?

Of course there is also the possibility that publishers are generally 
reacting to perceived market demand and they simply perceive more demand 
for python/ruby/...

All of this is not to say there are no new books. There is a new 
edition of Mastering Perl on the way.