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Re: Why we're here
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From:
abigail
Date:
July 24, 2000 10:15
Subject:
Re: Why we're here
Message ID:
20000724171448.32709.qmail@foad.org
On Mon, Jul 24, 2000 at 01:18:06PM +0200, Jesús Quiroga wrote:
> At 12:13 24/07/00, you wrote:
> >Situation: We like people to use Perl. We like to use Perl. We don't
> >want to have to argue over if Perl is an appropiate language when it
> >clearly is, but the magazines and word-of-mouth tells that Perl is
> >hard and Perl is unmaintainable and whatnot.
>
>
> Perl is indeed hard and unmaintainable to the eyes of many. That's their
> perception, and it's their truth. And no, Perl is not the appropriate
> language to them, they are utterly convinced.
>
> They warn their friends against Perl, because they feel it's the right
> thing to do. The magazines find out what the readers think and print it:
> 'Perl is hard. Why? Because all my friends believe it's hard'.
>
> Why is this? Because most potential Perl users are very different
> than the UNIX and C programmers Larry wanted to attract when he
> designed Perl to be universally useful. They aren't stupid, they
> just don't see the benefits.
>
> Perl 6 should provide ammunition to shoot this damaging perception.
> Above all, less complexity.
If that is the goal of perl6, I shall fight it with all my energy.
Perl is popular of what it is. Now, a new language still also called Perl
might attract more programmers than the current Perl does. But those
will be people currently doing Python, Java or something else.
Perl is popular. Not only despite the perceived complexity, but *because*
of that complexity. It's that complexity that enables us to do beautiful
things. It's what makes us distinct from Python or Java.
It would be a shame to give that up and go for marketshare instead.
Abigail
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