> From Bogart Salzberg > Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 9:13 PM > Subject: [Boston.pm] Bottom Up > > The popularity of PHP, for example, was built from scratch on bottom-up > buzz. It had so little hope of ever being widely used that its creator > named it "Personal Home Pages". But it caught fire for two reasons: 1) > it's friendly to newbies, and 2) it's web-centric. (And hosting
PHP was new and was "single purpose". If you offer people doing integer math a choice between "any+", the operator that can add any two numbers, and "int+", the operator that only works on integers, they will choose "int+" every time, because "It's optimized for what they do". Even if it isn't. And "It isn't cluttered with unnecessary functionality". Even if it is. PHP didn't have a history, so people had not heard about how "unreadable" it is or how "weird" it's advocates are. Not that it is or that they are. But reputations matter. > How can Perl get buzz? Get newbies. This won't help Perl in the short So, you are saying Perl would be more popular if more people used it... It's a radical theory, but I am sure it will catch on if more people accept it. > 1. Make Perl easier to find. The Unix core of Mac OS X is a HUGE Is Perl actually harder to find than other languages? Would Apple be happy if more Mac users "discover" Perl and call up Apple to complain that it does not permit them to play MP3s in an even more radical way? Would Apple react by removing Perl? By hiding it? > 2. Make Perl easier to learn. In terms of utility and usability, Yes. Make Perl into Visual Basic. And remove all that confusing regular expression stuff. > 3. Make Perl CGI easier to use. The aid of "CGI::Carp Perl CGIs are, in a design sense, awful. For all the same reasons people like PHP, they should be using Mason (or something like it). Make CGI easy to avoid. > 4. Make Perl fun. Celebrate the elements of sport and humor latent in > Perl (or Perl hackers, anyway). Perl puzzles. Perl duels. The > Obfuscated Perl Contest is a great example. Yes, nothing quite spreads the reputation of Perl as "easy to learn" and "maintainable" like having it being well known for treating line noise as valid programs. > 5. Clean up CPAN. The egalitarian nature of CPAN is commendable. > However, quality and activity vary widely and redundancy is rampant. A <bait>Perhaps we should require people to hold certifications before they contribute code.</> You are right about CPAN. CPAN's hugeness and uneven quality is intimidating -- "I can't learn Perl! Look at all the modules I have to know how to use!" -- and impenetrable -- "How can I know if Bob's brand new version 0.03 module is better than Joe's 3-year old version 9.72 module?" I see this problem as insoluble, but it'd be great if someone solved it anyway. > 6. Add features. PHP is certainly obese, but Perl never pretended to be I suggest that we simplify CPAN at the same time by moving every module into the core. These new features will help with making Perl easier to learn too. .. Can someone remind me why Perl needs to be more popular? What actual problem will be solved? Are we running low on module developers? Running low on core developers? Is the existing code-base evaporating? Are there not enough t-shirt and book sales? How will we know when Perl is popular enough? Wouldn't it be easier to just trash the reputations of other languages? Should we have existing Perl users use Perl more often? -- John Redford _______________________________________________ Boston-pm mailing list [email protected] http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
