"Perl has been pretty much forgotten" says Spolsky

[Ben Bullock]

In case anyone's interested, this is Joel Spolsky of stackoverflow.com
on Perl:

(fast forward to segment from 39:10 to 39:25)

[This statement is not too surprising considering the general level of
stackoverflow.com.]

 

[Charlton Wilbur]

BB> In case anyone's interested, this is Joel Spolsky of
BB> stackoverflow.com on Perl:

BB>

BB> (fast forward to segment from 39:10 to 39:25)

BB> [This statement is not too surprising considering the general
BB> level of stackoverflow.com.]

Joel Spolsky is a troll. He occasionally says something of value, but
then, a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Charlton

 

[ccc31807]

Joel Spolsky is a troll.  He occasionally says something of value, but
then, a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Joel might be a troll, but I've gotten a lot out of his writings. I
think they are pretty good, and I like to go to his site and read his
essays (On Software) from time to time.

I agree that Perl has been mostly forgotten by the world at large, but
I don't think that's the important point. I've had two experiences in
the last four weeks, introducing Perl (or rather, Perl apps) to IT
guys who came into the conversation expressing a lot of skepticism
about Perl. However, after looking at the code and comparing it head
to head in one case with the identical app written in Java, they had
to admit that Perl was a legitimate tool for some jobs.

One poster here (I think it was Uri but I might be mistaken) recently
observed that Perl was still the best at its original purpose,
extracting and reporting data. If many have forgotten Perl or never
knew it in the first place, it's because they apparently don't have a
need to extract or report data. This isn't a criticism, merely a
statement that people don't normally use tools that they don't need.

I read this week a report on using Erlang as a web development
language. I am not ashamed to state that I use Perl for web
development and have experimented a number of different languages such
as Python, CFML, .NET, Java, and others. The report had a section
explaining why Erlang was appropriate for web apps which was pretty
persuasive -- multithreading, stability, hot fixes, and so on. The
only problem is that people haven't used Erlang for web apps, but they
have used a lot of Perl. Over a period of time people will tend to use
the tools best suited for particular jobs, and that includes Perl, but
not Erlang. I have a pin extractor which I use rarely, but it's
absolutely indispensable when I need to extract a pin, and in the same
vein, I wouldn't pay much attention to reports that people have
forgotten Perl.

CC

 

[Nathan Keel]

In case anyone's interested, this is Joel Spolsky of stackoverflow.com
on Perl:

(fast forward to segment from 39:10 to 39:25)

[This statement is not too surprising considering the general level of
stackoverflow.com.]

Didn't visit the link/video, and who cares what some random person says?
So what is Perl isn't the most hyped or most discussed language by a
lot of people in certain groups? One could use Rails and Ruby on Rails
as an example to say that Perl, Python, C, C++, Java/JSP, and a bunch
of other languages have been forgotten. Not that this link you've
provided says that, but I am betting that's in essence what it says. I
don't even know who Joel Spolensky is, nor do I care, and I don't
believe this person (never hearing of them) is any authority on the
subject. The fact remains, Perl is widely used by hundreds of
thousands or even millions of people every day, either as an end user
or a developer or systems administrator. This type of article is about
on the same level as the media's desire to hype the Swine Flu panic to
get more money for commercials.

 

[brian d foy]

In case anyone's interested, this is Joel Spolsky of stackoverflow.com
on Perl:

To be fair, Joel is talking about starting a rewrite project from
scratch, and was mostly talked about how the Netscape to Mozilla
translation almost killed the project. The Perl 6 comment was something
he didn't dwell on, wasn't false, and we would do well to recognize as
history.

Despite what you think of Perl, how much you love it, or how much you
want Perl 6 to succeed, the community botched Perl 6 between 2001 and
2005. There was a lot of initial excitement in 2000 and 2001, and when
everyone completely missed the completely naïve goals set out in 2000,
a lot of people did stop paying attention. Audrey Tang revitalized it
in 2005 with an implementation on Haskell, and since then things have
been going very nicely. As I tell people, serious development began in
2005. That's embarrassing, but it's the truth.

 

[Ben Bullock]

In case anyone's interested, this is Joel Spolsky of stackoverflow.com
on Perl:

For those who don't know who Joel Spolsky is and what
stackoverflow.com is, it's a kind of question and answer site for
programmers founded by two blog authors, Spolsky and another person
called Jeff Atwood.

I used to use the site a lot but stopped posting because of stuff like
this:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/815787/what-perl-regex-can-match-camelcase-words

Assuming you aren't using the regex to do extraction, and just matching....
[A-Z][a-zA-z]*
Isn't the only real requirement that it's all letters and starts with a capital letter?

I'll leave spotting the mistake here as an exercise for the reader.
What bothers me isn't the mistake so much as that someone has
"upvoted" the answer, and yet another person has wrongly stated it is
"equivalent to Brian's answer". Note that there is no way of knowing
who upvoted this answer. When I was posting on the site I repeatedly
saw wrong answers being upvoted, and had the experience of correct
answers I'd written being downvoted.

I suggest people steer clear of this kind of misinformation site.

 

[Rui Maciel]

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>

Please try not to post HTML encoded messages.


Rui Maciel

 

[Peter J. Holzer]

I used to use the site a lot but stopped posting because of stuff like
this:

I haven't used stackoverflow yet so I can't comment on the quality of
the answers in general.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/815787/what-perl-regex-can-match-camelcase-words

Assuming you aren't using the regex to do extraction, and just matching...
[A-Z][a-zA-z]*
Isn't the only real requirement that it's all letters and starts with a capital letter?

I'll leave spotting the mistake here as an exercise for the reader.
What bothers me isn't the mistake so much as that someone has
"upvoted" the answer, and yet another person has wrongly stated it is
"equivalent to Brian's answer".

And somebody else has corrected the error (which I think was a simple
typo) in the mean time.

Note that there is no way of knowing who upvoted this answer. When I
was posting on the site I repeatedly saw wrong answers being upvoted,
and had the experience of correct answers I'd written being downvoted.

You'll see the same phenomenon in any Usenet discussion: Somebody posts
a correct answer, but somebody else claims that it's wrong. Or somebody
posts a wrong answer and somebody else agrees that it's correct.

Sure, in Usenet you can see who made which comment and if you are in a
group long enough you get a feeling who you can trust, but that even the
most knowledgable make a mistake once in a while and even the dumbest
gets it right sometimes, so you'll still have to think for yourself.

OTOH, in a long Usenet discussion it's sometimes hard to track who said
what and what the real answer is. So I think the concept of
stackoverflow (especially the ability to edit existing answers) is very
promising for a question-and-answers service (which Usenet isn't
primarily).

I suggest people steer clear of this kind of misinformation site.

I notice that Brian's answer has 6 votes and the answer you critizised
has only 3 votes.

hp

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

body { font: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } p { font: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } ..standout { font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: #993333; line-height: 13px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 10px; } ..code { border-top: 1px solid #ddd; border-left: 1px solid #ddd; border-right: 2px solid #000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000; padding: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; background: #ffffea; color: black; -moz-border-radius: 10px; } ..codedark { border-top: 10px solid #03f; border-left: 1px solid #ddd; border-right: 2px solid grey; border-bottom: 2px solid grey; padding: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; background: black; color: yellow; -moz-border-radius: 10px; } #code { color: black; font-size: 14px; font-family: courier; padding-left: 5px; } #line-number { color: #804000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; padding-right: 5px; border-right: 1px dotted #804000; } blockquote[type=cite] { padding: 0em .5em .5em .5em !important; border-right: 2px solid blue !important; border-left: 2px solid blue !important; } blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] { border-right: 2px solid maroon !important; border-left: 2px solid maroon !important; } blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] { border-right: 2px solid teal !important; border-left: 2px solid teal !important; } blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] { border-right: 2px solid purple !important; border-left: 2px solid purple !important; } blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] { border-right: 2px solid green !important; border-left: 2px solid green !important; } Rui Maciel wrote: Andrew DeFaria wrote:

&lt;!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"&gt;
&lt;html&gt;
&lt;head&gt;

Please try not to post HTML encoded messages.
Please try to stop telling people to do things your way.

 

[Charlton Wilbur]

RM> Please try not to post HTML encoded messages.

We've had this dust-up with Mr. DeFaria before. You're better off just
plonking him.

Charlton

 

[Jürgen Exner]

Please try not to post HTML encoded messages.

Oh, I had no idea Mr. DeFaria is still around. You must be new because
everyone else has plonked him a loooooong time ago.

jue

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

body { font: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } p { font: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .standout { font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: #993333; line-height: 13px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 10px; } .code { border-top: 1px solid #ddd; border-left: 1px solid #ddd; border-right: 2px solid #000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000; padding: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; background: #ffffea; color: black; -moz-border-radius: 10px; } .codedark { border-top: 10px solid #03f; border-left: 1px solid #ddd; border-right: 2px solid grey; border-bottom: 2px solid grey; padding: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; background: black; color: yellow; -moz-border-radius: 10px; } #code { color: black; font-size: 14px; font-family: courier; padding-left: 5px; } #line-number { color: #804000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; padding-right: 5px; border-right: 1px dotted #804000; } blockquote[type=cite] { padding: 0em .5em .5em .5em !important; border-right: 2px solid blue !important; border-left: 2px solid blue !important; } blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] { border-right: 2px solid maroon !important; border-left: 2px solid maroon !important; } blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] { border-right: 2px solid teal !important; border-left: 2px solid teal !important; } blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] { border-right: 2px solid purple !important; border-left: 2px solid purple !important; } blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] { border-right: 2px solid green !important; border-left: 2px solid green !important; } Jürgen Exner wrote: Rui Maciel &lt;[email protected]&gt; wrote:
Andrew DeFaria wrote:

&lt;!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"&gt;
&lt;html&gt;
&lt;head&gt;
Please try not to post HTML encoded messages.
Oh, I had no idea Mr. DeFaria is still around. You must be new because everyone else has plonked him a loooooong time ago.
Demonstrably false. Another pinhead who thinks everybody does exactly as he does... The real world is much different son but then again you don't get out in the real world much now do you...

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

body { font: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } p { font: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } ..standout { font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: #993333; line-height: 13px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 10px; } ..code { border-top: 1px solid #ddd; border-left: 1px solid #ddd; border-right: 2px solid #000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000; padding: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; background: #ffffea; color: black; -moz-border-radius: 10px; } ..codedark { border-top: 10px solid #03f; border-left: 1px solid #ddd; border-right: 2px solid grey; border-bottom: 2px solid grey; padding: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; background: black; color: yellow; -moz-border-radius: 10px; } #code { color: black; font-size: 14px; font-family: courier; padding-left: 5px; } #line-number { color: #804000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; padding-right: 5px; border-right: 1px dotted #804000; } blockquote[type=cite] { padding: 0em .5em .5em .5em !important; border-right: 2px solid blue !important; border-left: 2px solid blue !important; } blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] { border-right: 2px solid maroon !important; border-left: 2px solid maroon !important; } blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] { border-right: 2px solid teal !important; border-left: 2px solid teal !important; } blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] { border-right: 2px solid purple !important; border-left: 2px solid purple !important; } blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] blockquote[type=cite] { border-right: 2px solid green !important; border-left: 2px solid green !important; } Charlton Wilbur wrote:
RM&gt; Andrew DeFaria wrote:
&gt;&gt; &lt;!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"&gt;
&gt;&gt; &lt;html&gt; &lt;head&gt;

RM&gt; Please try not to post HTML encoded messages.

We've had this dust-up with Mr. DeFaria before. You're better off just plonking him.
AKA: You lost this battle before yet still you attempt to bully people.

 

[sln]

Oh, I had no idea Mr. DeFaria is still around. You must be new because
everyone else has plonked him a loooooong time ago.

jue

I didn't filter this guy. Anybody else I should know about?
I'm new to plonking. How do I plonk somebody, because I really don't
want to see plonking responses?

-sln

 

[sln]

RM> Please try not to post HTML encoded messages.

We've had this dust-up with Mr. DeFaria before. You're better off just
plonking him.

Charlton

Never had a dust problem with this guy. Maybe you should plonk like you
plonk your boss at work.

-sln

 

[sln]

[Sorry. This message is no longer available.]

EasyNews sucks Donkey Dick !!!

-sln

 

[sln]

[Sorry. This message is no longer available.]

EasyNews sucks Donkey Dick !!!

-sln

 

[sln]

[Sorry. This message is no longer available.]

EasyNews sucks Donkey Dick !!!

-sln

 

[sln]

Please try not to post HTML encoded messages.


Rui Maciel

[Sorry. This message is no longer available.]

EasyNews sucks Donkey Dick !!!
And so do you

-sln

 

[sln]

Oh, I had no idea Mr. DeFaria is still around. You must be new because
everyone else has plonked him a loooooong time ago.

jue

[Sorry. This message is no longer available.]

EasyNews sucks Donkey Dick !!!

-sln