I would like to begin this email by appologizing in advance for anything
that I might say that might be covered in the list rules or the list
archive. I am a newbie to the list and, as you might imagine, have not yet
RTFM. However, I would like to chime in on this topic.
EXPOSING MY BIASES
Now, before I go any further, let me tell you that I signed up to this list
because I am one of the owners of a company that sells Perl AND Java
products in the Asian and European financial sector.
I joined the list because I am a sales person looking for new ways to push
(or advocate) my Perl products in a market that is farily opposed/uninformed
about Perl (from my experience). The 'selling Perl through stealth' strategy
has certainly worked, but it only works so far.
In other words, within the context of reading and thinking about 'this'
list, I don't particularly care about "overly technical issues" such as why
it is bad that Java does not work on a PowerPC with LINUX installed and how
hard it is to install LWP.
I don't care, because my clients (or the people who make technology
purchasing decisions) don't care.
I care, within the context of 'this' list, about marketing and advocacy. I
can get all the technical mumbo jumbo I want on all the other lists, and in
fact from my own staff!
I am interested in learing from others who are advocating Perl in the
enterprise market, not in the slashdot community. How do you all sell your
products when you are being forced to sell the language at the same time?
That is, when I sell a Java product, I can start with selling my product.
When I sell a Perl product I almost invariably have to spend a good eal of
energy selling the language first.
More importantly, how can we, as a group, change this situation?
WHAT'S THE POINT?
Okay, sorry about the length of that introduction, but I thought it was
important to expose my biases first. So...the point I'd like to make...or I
guess the first question I'd like to ask is....what is this thread really
about? What are the salient points that all you email authors would like me
to take away?
Surely the title of the thread "Perl Doesn't Suck" is not really it. Cute
title, but I don't think that it sumarizes the intitial point very well.
And how about the replies to the original post....I suppose that on a list
like [EMAIL PROTECTED], the issues to focus on should not be which version
of Perl is pre-built into which operating systems.
Aren't we supposed to be working together to think of more efficient AND
MORE REVENUE-GENERATING ways in which to advocate Perl here? (Remember, I
am a newbie so I may be totally wrong).
.......
I believe that the the initial point made by Adam could be summarized as...
"The Java development/application environment can be very difficult and time
consuming to install."
I think this is a valid point.
I can honestly say that even having installed our Java environment multiple
times, it is still hard to do at each new client site and I still have to
send a project engineer and developer to the site for 1 week.
That said, a Perl install "of equivalent level complexity" is
also pretty darn hard. Note that when I say equivalent
complexity, I mean that a perl accelerator like mod_perl
needs to be installed and a full-featured toolkit along
with it. Only then does a perl solution compare with a
servlet one.
Granted, in our case, we are pushing Java to the extreme and our environment
is made more confusing by lots and lots of J2EE bells and whistles. But even
a standard, simple install can be troublesome, especially within more exotic
environments.
However, what good is making this point to me?
Is our best advocacy strategy to say that, "we don't suck"? Or, more
correctly, is our best advocacy strategy to say that our competition does
suck? Isn't that really what the meaning behind the first email from Adam
was?
Now, don't get me wrong, I do believe that slandering your competition is
one of the tools in your marketing toolbox. However, as any political aid
will tell you, though potentially powerful, slander is a danagerous tool to
use and when you use it, you had better use it well.
So my question then is, will this direction lead to a correct use of
competition-undermining marketing?
I think not.
I think that Elaine is 100% correct in saying that the pointy-hairs will
simply say that they can buy a support contract from SUN and the issue will
disappear from their world. Furhter, any enterprise client will say that it
does not make one bit of difference how hard it is to install Java on a
LINUX PowerPC. That is not the infrastrucute they would be using anyway.
They probably already use SUN/IBM/Microsoft or the like.
Okay....so that is all I wanted to say in my first email to the list. Hope
I have not pissed anyone off....please remember that though my words may be
challenging, my heart is with you. I, like you, want Perl to grow. I
believe that capturing the enterprise market is the best and most efficient
way to make Perl grow. Doing so means more legitimace for Perl, more
investment in R&D and products, and the continually self-propogating cycle
that Java enjoys.
