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>> 1) The Perl 5 community itself was dwindling before Perl 6. https://metacpan.org/recent https://metacpan.org/recent More people are writing Perl everyday t

by kamaal 7y ago

>> 1) The Perl 5 community itself was dwindling before Perl 6. https://metacpan.org/recent https://metacpan.org/recent More people are writing Perl everyday than may be even Java, Let's put this Perl is dwindling argument to rest. Perl's niche, more like empire is glue language for anything Unix. That is a huge empire to govern on. Unless Unix is going away, Perl is here to stay. >> 5) Perl in general doesn't have a good "name" with todays devs >> Node got the web/services niche Most dynamic languages are in the same bucket. Today everybody is hesitant to start any serious big project in a dynamic programming language. Even in case of JavaScript most things will move to TypeScript eventually. And that too is more or less a totally new language. >>Go got the backend niche Go got nothing. Heck, merely shell scripting exceeds Go usage by several multiplicative factors. >> 7) Python got the data/science niche Most of the use case for Python's 'Data science' library is basically spread sheet automation. Perl has been used to that kind of work since early 90s. >>what's left for Perl 6? Firstly, and entire universe exists outside of web development. And most that universe is far more exciting than majority of api and json plumbing work in web dev work. Secondly, Not sure, but no one can rebut an argument that says there is no scope for any new software to be ever written anymore.

coldtea 7y ago
>More people are writing Perl everyday than may be even Java, Let's put this Perl is dwindling argument to rest. Err, that's just a link to a submissions page. That's not a statistic, and it doesn't even show if Perl kept its people or lost them. Perl could even have more people than 1999, but much smaller mindshare given how hugely larger the dev market is in 2019 vs 1999. Actual long term analysis look like "Perl is dwindling" is right: https://insights.dice.com/2018/04/05/perl-uncertain-future-tiobe-index/ https://insights.dice.com/2018/04/05/perl-uncertain-future-t... >Perl's niche, more like empire is glue language for anything Unix. That is a huge empire to govern on. And that "empire" is already lost for Perl. Dev ops have moved to Ansible, Puppet, Chef, etc, and Python and other languages are used as the glue. The "Perl gluing admin" is a relic. >Most of the use case for Python's 'Data science' library is basically spread sheet automation. Perl has been used to that kind of work since early 90s. Which is irrelevant as to who does it now (and it's not even right, Pandas, Numpy and co are not "spread sheet automation"). >Most dynamic languages are in the same bucket. Today everybody is hesitant to start any serious big project in a dynamic programming language. Actually millions start serious big projects in JS, Python and other dynamic languages. There's a movement towards static typing but not that strong in actual practice. Typescript is tiny compared to the size of greenfield JS being written. >Firstly, and entire universe exists outside of web development. And most that universe is far more exciting than majority of api and json plumbing work in web dev work. Also far smaller, devs wise. And I didn't just mention web work, but also data science, microservices, and so on. (And my point wasn't that Perl 6 can't do those, but that people aren't doing those with Perl 6 -- people as in, "people in quantities large enough to matter").
- kamaal 7y ago
  You tossed out a statistic on library submissions and are debating psychology(mindshare). Nothing is dwindling on the long term for Perl. >>Dev ops have moved to Ansible, Puppet, Chef, etc, and Python and other languages are used as the glue. This is glue? Sorry but we seem to come from very different worlds. >>Also far smaller, devs wise. Wow, Just wow! You probably won't like to hear this, but this how most of the software world works: 1. C based backend language: Java. C Based embedded/speed requirement systems: C/C++ 2. Glue: Shell/Perl 3. Web dev: Node, Java(Webservices) 4. Lisp Based languages backend: Clojure/Racket. 5. ML based languages backend: F#, OCaml, Haskell. 6. Database: SQL. There are other special languages which rule their domain. But this is how bulk of the world works. Data science area is still a extremely small part of even the web dev world, let alone the broader software ecosystem.

by kamaal 7y ago

coldtea 7y ago

>More people are writing Perl everyday than may be even Java, Let's put this Perl is dwindling argument to rest. Err, that's just a link to a submissions page. That's not a statistic, and it doesn't even show if Perl kept its people or lost them. Perl could even have more people than 1999, but much smaller mindshare given how hugely larger the dev market is in 2019 vs 1999. Actual long term analysis look like "Perl is dwindling" is right: https://insights.dice.com/2018/04/05/perl-uncertain-future-tiobe-index/ https://insights.dice.com/2018/04/05/perl-uncertain-future-t... >Perl's niche, more like empire is glue language for anything Unix. That is a huge empire to govern on. And that "empire" is already lost for Perl. Dev ops have moved to Ansible, Puppet, Chef, etc, and Python and other languages are used as the glue. The "Perl gluing admin" is a relic. >Most of the use case for Python's 'Data science' library is basically spread sheet automation. Perl has been used to that kind of work since early 90s. Which is irrelevant as to who does it now (and it's not even right, Pandas, Numpy and co are not "spread sheet automation"). >Most dynamic languages are in the same bucket. Today everybody is hesitant to start any serious big project in a dynamic programming language. Actually millions start serious big projects in JS, Python and other dynamic languages. There's a movement towards static typing but not that strong in actual practice. Typescript is tiny compared to the size of greenfield JS being written. >Firstly, and entire universe exists outside of web development. And most that universe is far more exciting than majority of api and json plumbing work in web dev work. Also far smaller, devs wise. And I didn't just mention web work, but also data science, microservices, and so on. (And my point wasn't that Perl 6 can't do those, but that people aren't doing those with Perl 6 -- people as in, "people in quantities large enough to matter").

kamaal 7y ago
You tossed out a statistic on library submissions and are debating psychology(mindshare). Nothing is dwindling on the long term for Perl. >>Dev ops have moved to Ansible, Puppet, Chef, etc, and Python and other languages are used as the glue. This is glue? Sorry but we seem to come from very different worlds. >>Also far smaller, devs wise. Wow, Just wow! You probably won't like to hear this, but this how most of the software world works: 1. C based backend language: Java. C Based embedded/speed requirement systems: C/C++ 2. Glue: Shell/Perl 3. Web dev: Node, Java(Webservices) 4. Lisp Based languages backend: Clojure/Racket. 5. ML based languages backend: F#, OCaml, Haskell. 6. Database: SQL. There are other special languages which rule their domain. But this is how bulk of the world works. Data science area is still a extremely small part of even the web dev world, let alone the broader software ecosystem.