>Also, many Perl people (including myself and MJD) started boycotting Amazon
>late last year, too. I imagine that phenomenon would be stronger with Perl
>users than with Java users. So it depends on who is involved in these
>purchase circles, too. Corporations like Java, not Perl. Why? I
>personally don't care why, but I imagine it is because of the buzzwords and
>the cool looking widgets and the fuzzy feelings people get about object
>orientation. Since I am not interested in Perl conquering the world
>financially, it doesn't bother me, as long as Perl is still conquering the
>world in other ways.
We did think about the Amazon boycott but the sales nos. don't seem to
indicate an obvious effect.
>
>Of course, you do care about that, since you're in marketing (I don't know
>what "marketing" means, except I know it has something to do with money).
FYI, not in marketing anymore but am in research and our group uses Perl
every day...I too care about Perl...but am curious how the obvious increase
in interest in Java is effecting the adoption rate of Perl
>
>
>>We are tracking several indicators and some of these indicators seem to
>>suggest that the popularity of Perl is not growing as fast as it has been
>>in the past. My theory is that Java is becoming much more ubiquitous, and
>>this is occurring at the expense of Perl (and also perhaps all of the other
>>OS languages but I can't say that for a sure.....yet).
>
>I'd think it is more of a factor that for awhile, some very interesting and
>important Perl books with widespread appeal were coming out, and now that
>isn't as much the case. Why does there seem to be fewer books recently?
>Maybe it is because there hasn't been much to publish about. I mean, we
>have algorithms, we have the cookbook, we have regexes, we have objects, we
>have the Camel. Most of the bigger bases are covered. The niche books are
>still coming, and many of them are good, but they aren't going to be as
>widely bought.
You make a good point. I have been tracking the no. of titles released in
both Java and Perl from year to year and the raw number of books released
in Java is an order of magnitude greater than the no. of books released in
Perl.
>
>Now that Perl 5.6 is becoming more widely used, we'll see new editions of
>books (like the Camel and the Hip Owls). Will that reverse the trend? I
>don't know; right now, it seems core perl development isn't as active as
>core Java development (excluding Perl 6, for which there is little to write
>about for a book).
Well, I think the raw nos. of core Perl developers vs. core Java developers
will point to the reasons why.
>
>I don't know that this is a bad thing, though I know some will disagree.
>You don't see many C books published, either, and it is still widely used.
>There just isn't much left to say about C. For Perl, that clearly isn't
>the case, but it may be that it is more the case with Perl than with Java.
You make an interesting point here. O'Reilly is the dominant Perl
publisher but maybe that isn't a good thing. If there were more publishers
publishing good Perl books that would probably make for a far richer
editorial ecology. In the Java world for example the editorial space is
dominated by several publishers vying for the top dog position. Any food
for thought.....
Madeline Schnapp
Director of Market Research
O'Reilly and Associates
101 Morris Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472
Tel: 707-829-0515, FAX: 707-829-0104
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED], URL: http://www.oreilly.com
