Sad to see this separation amongst ourselves. Some of us are businesspeople,
PHB's, .... who also run a development staff and have the luxury to
contribute to programming time as well.
There cannot be an in-the-trenches guru programmer versus management or
versus businesspeople attitude. From one moment to the next, we the Perl
advocacy group might be at either end of that spectrum.
Not sure if the following is relevant or has any value to the group, but as a
businessman and manager in search, I don't "see" many success stories in the
O'reilly list or even discussions within usenet regarding Perl's usage in
traditional enterprise application development. For example, I'm currently on
a warpath to migrate my legacy environment to either Perl or Java. I'm
referring to GL, AP/AR, inventory, fixed asset + inventory management,
service/dispatch, customer care and order entry. My colleagues at sister
companies (and competing organizations for that matter) are either still
running older Cobol systems, Informix 4GL, or migrating to Java. Not everyone
is willing to brave an SAP implementation and conform their business to the
framework within one of these ERP solutions, so we chose to continue in-house
development. Perl is still viewed amongst these development shops that I've
maintained contact with as a datascrubber, glue, or sysadmin tool. This is
all that they (management *and* MIS) have been exposed to. Whether we like it
or not, exposure through trade rags, bookshelves at Barnes & Nobel, web
searches and communication with peers all play an important part to growing
one's awareness of the available technical components and development
products or tools that are at one's disposal.
Has anyone from this group written core financial apps in Perl ? If so, can
I hear about it and can we get some of those stories in to the Success
Stories listing?
I am very comfortable with Perl from the perspective of the technical merits
within the language. I have been writing Perl code for many years now and can
attest to many of those features. What I'm unsure of is Perl in large
application projects, etc.
Another thought, having watched a couple of my developers witness my search
for the next environment over the last couple of years (while I was creating
a data replication system from a crummy old datasource): They tend to watch
the local market for developers, ... as a safety net. Should my organization
bounce someday, they need to be marketable. They are under the impression,
right or wrong, that Java and VB worlds are far safer for one's career. To
find a fulltime Perl programming job in Colorado is difficult. So, to spend
100% of their time in Perl development and lose their current edge in any
other technology might not be in their best personal interest. If I decide to
have them participate in this decision, these factors could directly
influence the outcome. Better widget or not.
Perception is reality.
Now, as a businessman with or without logic, I'm still the one responsible
for the decision here and will affect Perl's usage within these walls, one
way or another. We are a small shop, 500 users and 10 locations, ... but
hopefuly this diatribe lends some insight to thoughts happening during the
decision process, where the advocacy role plays it's biggest part.
Rodney Clang
Lewan & Associates
On Tuesday 21 August 2001 12:02 pm, you wrote:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Selena Sol) wrote:
> > > Chris wrote:
> > >
> > > Are you attempting to ascribe logic to business decisions? That is not
> > > how business is done. Business is done by going along with someone who
> > > pretends to know what he is talking about and then justifying the
> > > decision by quoting a report mentioned in the Wall Street Journal.
> >
> > Chris, you are so totally wrong.
>
> No I'm not. *shrug*
>
> > I would recommend sitting down with the
> > businesspeople inside your own company and interviewing them.
>
> I would recommend you don't assume I am ignorant when you have
> absolutely no clue what I do and don't know (as evidenced by your
> remarks, and the fact that you don't know me).
>
> > Try to find
> > out what it is that they do all day long. I guarantee you that there is
> > a lot of logic to what it is that they do.
>
> I guarantee there isn't. *shrug*
