On Thu, May 25, 2000 at 12:23:58PM -0500, "Elaine -HFB- Ashton" wrote:
> Mark Mielke [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] quoth:
> *>So perl's biggest problem (also it's biggest selling point) is that it
> *>attracts a great number of people that wouldn't (read: shouldn't) ever
> *>be able to program in the first place.
> If the onus of blame isn't on Perl itself but on the programmer, then how
> does one illustrate that conclusively?
It has been said that old ideas die with old people. In this case, old ideas
in a corporation die with the fired or retired.
No names mentioned, as only one example of the silly politics that occur,
there was a situation recently that is worthy of note. A few years ago,
"Objected Oriented" became the buzz word of the day, and in this certain
section of a certain company, they decided to take a product they had and
make it "object oriented." They hired two "expert" OO designers fresh out
of University to write something up for them. Making a long story short,
the OO designers left the company, and the design fell apart. The solution
simply didn't work. After that failure, several sections of this certain
company all declared OO as bad, and dictated to their programmers that they
should use as few classes as possible, in one case, a manager actually
ordered that a certain product be written with one class.
This crap happens everywhere.
If you want to get around it, you have to do it from the inside
out. Smart people exist in every company, you just have to find them,
and get them to see your cause. In the case of Nortel Networks, I have
been on several larger projects that have been implemented completely
in Perl. Other languages that have caught on include Java and TCL.
Finally my Linux desktop is being accepted, and at some point in the
future will be one of the corporate platforms. This doesn't happen without
the effort of many stubborn people, who have connections on the inside track.
Convincing the people that matter of the success of other companies using
perl would be a start. Getting some better coders for critical operations
is another start... :-)
As much as I fight with Tom C., I found his presentation to be quite
good for the audience when he spoke here to several Nortel employees.
Push your weight around... effectively... and the opposition will give. :-)
> *>How is that for cynicism?
> H.L. Mencken would be proud. However, the hype-meter for OpenSource and
> such keeps rising and the symptom you describe is only going to get worse
> from here.
The open source movement has to end somewhere. It'll likely end at the point
where programmers can't afford to put food on the table for their families.
A nice balance will be met, it just might not be smooth getting there.
mark
--
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One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them...
http://mark.mielke.cc/
