>>>>> "D" == DirkDn <ddn123...@gmail.com> writes:
D> ==> I had the impression a lot of people have their cosy little
D> language and still have a need for additional powerful cross-platform
D> language without all the challenges of C++.
D> This could be a selling argument.
how about a variant of an old slogan:
perl is STILL the glue/ducttape of the internet.
D> ==> Perl as a lifestyle?
D> Well I did hear from several IT managers that one of the major
D> strengths of perl and incentive to choose it, is the large, living
D> community and cpan behind it.
D> Also perl people are renowned for being resourceful, eager and open to
D> all kinds of intellectual domains.
we have a reputation of perl hackers being smarter on average than other
language coders. in particular this is true with php coders (which seems
to attract non-coders and lesser types! :). i have seen this many times
on irc. someone comes in to ask a regex question. when asked to show
their perl code, they say it is for php (and sometimes other
langs). they say they know (or think) perl people know regexes better
than their own community.
a related point is that everyone else always claims perl compatible
regular expressions. they typically use the pcre library which is really
only a subset. only perl can do certain great tricks like s///e (where
the replacement string is perl, not java/php/whatever). so some
marketing stuff like 'only perl really has perl compatible regular
expressions' would be fun to flaunt. or 'perl hackers are better,
smarter and have more fun!' :).
in another fun vein, on cpan (which we need to promote as one of perl's
massive wins), we even dedicated a namespace to fun/wacky modules,
Acme::. and it is populated with tons of stuff that will (should) never
be used in production. perl hackers have the extra whatever to also code
code for fun and amusement and share it. other communities, if they even
have a a nascent cpan, would never allows such a namespace. they are all
too deadly serious and can't take a joke.
my point is that overall, perl is still king of the hill in many
ways. we aren't the most popular lang by jobs listed or books sold but
everyone knows a perl hacker, perl is so commonly a second or third
lang, it still is defacto in many application areas, it has the most
active and interesting community, etc.
thanx,
uri
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