At 12:52 PM 8/13/01 -0400, Adam Turoff wrote:
>On Mon, Aug 13, 2001 at 06:06:04PM +0200, Abigail wrote:
> > Now, I do *not* think Perl should go the Java way. I don't really care
> > Java is "big" and Perl is "small". I don't think Perl has anything to
> > gain by battling Java for the same market.
>
>This point should be stressed. Converting Perl into "Java Killer 1.0"
>leads to a type of intellectual monoculture that can't be healthy
>in the long term. In fact, it leads to a come-from-behind mindset
>which many Perl advocates have accepted for years now.
>
>Perl thrives. Perl solves real problems today. Perl is solving
>more problems today in more domains than it did last year, two
>years ago, or ten years ago. And that trend is continuing.
>
>Are other languages and software thriving? Yes. Does that aversely
>impact Perl? Not necessarily.
>
> > Let Perl be Perl.
>
>Amen.
Just to agree with this in different words, I am thinking of this in terms
of ecological niches. And Perl appears to fill a non-traditional niche,
the "glue" application we're all familiar with. Most other languages, Java
in particular, are oriented towards a product niche.
Perl is not optimized for the generation of products. If people want to
improve its capability in that respect, fine; but it must not come at the
expense of destroying the interstitial ecological niche in which it is the
market leader. Yes, it's a pity that glue application languages get little
respect; but people couldn't live without them. To determine whether or
not Perl is healthy we have to apply different standards and heuristics
from the ones we use to judge product-oriented languages.
--
Peter Scott
Pacific Systems Design Technologies
http://www.perldebugged.com
