On Sun, 12 Aug 2001, Elaine -HFB- Ashton wrote:
> Stas Bekman [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] quoth:
> *>
> *>Do you prefer to develop your company around some technology that you
> *>can hire SA in hundreds, but at some point you will realize that you
> *>cannot do things that you want?
>
> As diplomatically as possible I'd like to offer that the onus is not
> completely on the SA :) Even with the most expert mod_perl tuning SA you
> can still go awry if the applications underneath it aren't up to snuff.
I agree with you. But you can always roll your sleeves up and add the
missing features. I don't say it's simple, I say it's possible. And in
some cases it's much cheaper to hire a few very expensive experts than
start from scratch.
Some companies go even further, they hire these super experts to develop
the open source technologies and they know that when they need something
that's not available in the used technology, it'll be added on the same
day when needed, since the experts are in house. You don't have to go far
away, ActiveState and Covalent do this *very* successfully.
> *>The problem, or probably a better word: the misadvantage of Perl is that
> *>it doesn't have a corporate body behind it to do the brain-washing, Sun,
> *>MS and others do. Note that I'm talking only about the advocacy here,
> *>and not the language itself.
>
> I'd like to think I'm less a victim of Sun's brainwashing and just
> someone who continues to buy a product that works well for things I
> need them to work for :) As much as I twitch at the phrase 'Enterprise
> Solutions' it means something to corporations who can purchase
> 'solutions' that include support. A lot of business gets done via word
> of mouth. I don't think very many people buy products just on the
> quality of the advertisements, especially in this economy where
> getting any expenditure approved is tough. Personal recommendation is
> the most powerful advertisement of all yet, out of more than 10k
> systems where I used to work, I'd say only 10 or 15 of the customers
> ran apache.
I agree with you. And we all see that Perl has a great position already
without any marketing. Something which was done exactly through the word
of mouth.
It was probably wrong of me to say Sun's 'brainwashing'. A better
managerial world word would be: 'exposure'. Sun presents Java as a choice
for corporation. Now who presents Perl as a choice, other than word of
mouth?
If you have at least one engineer or SA in the company who knows Perl, he
can use his wits to try to shift the company toward Perl. Now what happens
if the company has no people who know Perl?
It's not that they don't like Perl, or they think it's not a viable
solution. It's that they don't know that Perl exists!
I want a corporate body to make waves, and let the Perl's merits do the
rest. Perl needs more corporate exposure, and once it gets it, let others
judge whether they like it or not.
As of this moment, Java doesn't play fair with Perl. As of this moment
it's not about which language is better, it's about who has a better
exposure.
Put yourself in the place of a typical manager. They know that they can
build their product in one of these three choices: Java, Java and Java.
Which language do you think they will pick?
It's sad.
> I'm not convinced that a lack of advertising money is the reason why
> Perl isn't as popular as Java or MS products.
I'm not trying to convince anybody in anything, I live Perl. All I try to
say is that Perl needs more exposure in the corporate levels. That's why
I'm trying to pitch to the marketing arm.
_____________________________________________________________________
Stas Bekman JAm_pH -- Just Another mod_perl Hacker
http://stason.org/ mod_perl Guide http://perl.apache.org/guide
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://apachetoday.com http://eXtropia.com/
http://singlesheaven.com http://perl.apache.org http://perlmonth.com/
