17 ms·

Thing is, while both Ruby & Vim have been driven by what she's describing she neatly sidestepped why those movements got started in the first place. Ruby gained

by msy 16y ago

Thing is, while both Ruby & Vim have been driven by what she's describing she neatly sidestepped why those movements got started in the first place. Ruby gained huge traction primarily via Rails because working on PHP is unenjoyable to many and Ruby is a really pleasant language to work with. Vim's recent resurgence can largely be traced to development of Textmate grinding to a complete halt. Textmate's rise a few years ago was due to BBEdit failing to evolve. Git beats seven shades of shit out of SVN. Erlang provides a proven answer to concurrency issues. Javascript is the only choice for the ever more important front-end side of web development. Each of these shifts of development momentum have rational, logical underpinnings. The buzz, the screen casts and other errata are a consequence of a lot of people making the same logical, reasoned choice and talking about it in public. I cannot think of anything that's changed in Perl that'd justify any such interest. I admit that may be my ignorance. Making sexy screencasts might get a little traffic but you can't astroturf wave of developer momentum with them.

jsrn 16y ago
> Vim's recent resurgence can largely be traced > to development of Textmate grinding to a complete > halt. makes sense - but then why didn't Emacs see an equivalent resurgence (although personally I think Emacs did see a resurgence, not because of Textmate but because of Org Mode). > Git beats seven shades of shit out of SVN. you could argue the same for Mercurial (or darcs, for that matter). But Git had the better initial marketing, Github, the Ruby folks used it etc. > I cannot think of anything that's changed in Perl > that'd justify any such interest. hm, CPAN (and the arguably failed attempts to copy it by other language communities), Moose, MooseX::Declare, Devel::REPL, Dancer, Mojolicious, Task::Kensho, ...
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  I think emacs did see a similar resurgance, for the same reason that vim has. We just each tend to notice different resurgances depending on which editor we use... And here's some constructive criticism for the aspiring Perl advocate: Stop talking in acronyms and obscure library names. What the hell is Moose and what real world problem does it solve significantly better than the popular alternatives? Same for CPAN, frankly. Most people younger than me don't get it when you name-check CPAN. What does that stand for?Give me a killer app for CPAN, preferably one that people care about. Note that the parent post speaks in use cases: Ruby is for problem X, Erlang is for problem Y, JavaScript is for problem Z. What is Perl for, and why won't Ruby work just as well?
  - pwpwp 16y ago
    emacs? Stop talking in acronyms and obscure names. Same for vim, frankly. Most people younger than me don't get it when you name-check vim. What does that stand for? :P
    - evilduck 16y ago
      The differences I see here are that a) emacs vs. vim has been a holy war that has gone on since both were conceived and is a debate which is often older than the programmers discussing it. To be ignorant of recent language developments or internal acronyms is excusable, to be ignorant of vim/emacs is less so. b) emacs and vim are not specific to any one language. Dropping acronyms that are non-specific to the topic (perl vs ruby, python, whatever) doesn't have some domain specific knowledge attached to it. If you're on either side of the debate, vim can be equally familiar or obscure.
      - pwpwp 16y ago
        Terminology has context. Complaining about an article on perl.org not mentioning what CPAN is, is like complaining about an article on cars.com not mentioning what BMW is.
      - nuxi 16y ago
        Regarding a) - that was emacs vs. vi, not vim. vim was first released in 1991.
  - jsrn 16y ago
    > And here's some constructive criticism for the aspiring Perl advocate point taken, thanks. Perhaps the Perl success stories should be mentioned more often, too: Want to launch a one-man search engine? Perl makes the easy things easy and the hard things possible: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2009/03/duck-duck-go-architecture.html http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2009/03/duck-duck-go-arc... Amazon.com, del.icio.us, Craigslist, the BBC? All have significant parts written in Perl: http://www.fischerlaender.net/perl/perl-used-for-web-development http://www.fischerlaender.net/perl/perl-used-for-web-develop... http://perl.apache.org/outstanding/success_stories/bbc.html http://perl.apache.org/outstanding/success_stories/bbc.html
- tsuraan 16y ago
  CPAN (and the arguably failed attempts to copy it by other language communities) I haven't used perl, but I do use ruby and I'm learning haskell. What does CPAN do that make rubygems and cabal failures? They both work really well from what I can see (especially cabal), but since I don't know perl, my POV is obviously limited. What am I missing out on?
  - Ingaz 16y ago
    Hackage, rubygems, PyPi - are all modeled after CPAN
    - tsuraan 16y ago
      Right, modeled after, but I'm wondering why they would be considered failures. Rubygems and cabal both work really well for me, and cabal is both the nicest package management system and the nicest build system I've ever used. I'd love to know why somebody would call it a failure.
      - jsrn 16y ago
        with "failed attempts to copy" I meant they (Rubygems, Hackage, ...) did not succeed (yet?) to replicate the size, diversity, test coverage, community etc. of CPAN. I do agree that they are useful. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
      - zaphar 16y ago
        You obviously have never tried to compile profiling binaries for a haskell I would not call cabal the nicest build system I had used. Cpan beats the pants off it.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - wladimir 16y ago
      Yes, that's clear. But what I don't understand is why the author thinks they have failed? I only have experience with PyPi, combined with easy_install it's an incredibly easy way to install packages and their dependencies.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
lwhi 16y ago
It's not nice to think that marketing shapes the way we see the world - but it does. Programmers are just likely to want to follow fashions as tweens - it's just that they're not so likely to admit it. EDIT: (we're) not so likely to admit it.
Su-Shee 16y ago
Sure, there are plenty of reasons of the whys and whens - on the other hand, we could easily ask "why didn't everyone choose Emacs when textmate's development came to a halt" or "Why didn't people choose Python as their web language of choice when they didn't like PHP" or "Why not Bazaar instead of SVN" or why Ryan Dahl chose JavaScript as a base language for Node.js and not any of Python, Ruby, Perl, Scheme, Lisp or Lua - but JavaScript - and so on. (As others already pointed out below so I'm summing this up in one sentence here..) Thankfully we have plenty of options to choose from nowadays. And yet I'm still convinced that the choice of Git over Bazaar has something to do with the smoothness of Github and with "It's from Linus!", the choice of Ruby/RoR with the image 37signals so nicely projects, that JavaScript's recent rise and massive change in perception comes thanks to Douglas Crockford and Erlang would have probably stayed in its niche if it wasn't for CouchDB. So I was surprised and amazed by the change in perception of Vim over the last year and therefore I blogged about it. And yes, along your examples Perl faced a similar situation around 2000 (so thanks for the well chosen examples) and decided to do Perl 6 to re-ignite the Perl spark. (Let's set aside for a moment wether or not it worked and what happened after that and boy am I sure the second I hit the submit button people will _exactly_ totally get into this subject.. ;) I also didn't ask wether or not one really wants the success of the masses or if it might be a good thing to stay in a well-defined niche with a community of your choice, creating your own culture - as for example shows the Linux distribution Slackware very happily year by year and to a great satisfaction of its users. I also didn't mention how much it might have to do with the age of developers, wether some changes plainly might be a generation thing of "first generation web developers" and "second generation web developers" or how much Apple's regained success does play into all that. But as we can see within the comments below, old Perl cliches aren't really dead and get repeated all over wether or not the subject was Perl's marketing and not Perl's qualities (or the perceived lack thereof...) Or maybe we all get kicked our asses by Lisp next year - thanks to Peter Seibel's Practical Lisp Programming book or "Land of Lisp" and of course Paul Graham and Emacs wins all over. ;)
- seanalltogether 16y ago
  Predictably Irrational talks about what you are describing here. You see, despite many of these technologies having a smaller install base, what they have done is create a new anchor in technology, which allows them to monopolize the conversation. The iPhone and Rails are the most significant anchors within the past 5 years. You can't make Perl popular by acting like rock stars and making videos on youtube, you can only making Perl popular by creating a new technological anchor for others to hook themselves to.
alttab 16y ago
The clarity of your writing makes this point very clear.

by msy 16y ago

jsrn 16y ago

> Vim's recent resurgence can largely be traced > to development of Textmate grinding to a complete > halt. makes sense - but then why didn't Emacs see an equivalent resurgence (although personally I think Emacs did see a resurgence, not because of Textmate but because of Org Mode). > Git beats seven shades of shit out of SVN. you could argue the same for Mercurial (or darcs, for that matter). But Git had the better initial marketing, Github, the Ruby folks used it etc. > I cannot think of anything that's changed in Perl > that'd justify any such interest. hm, CPAN (and the arguably failed attempts to copy it by other language communities), Moose, MooseX::Declare, Devel::REPL, Dancer, Mojolicious, Task::Kensho, ...

mechanical_fish 16y ago
I think emacs did see a similar resurgance, for the same reason that vim has. We just each tend to notice different resurgances depending on which editor we use... And here's some constructive criticism for the aspiring Perl advocate: Stop talking in acronyms and obscure library names. What the hell is Moose and what real world problem does it solve significantly better than the popular alternatives? Same for CPAN, frankly. Most people younger than me don't get it when you name-check CPAN. What does that stand for?Give me a killer app for CPAN, preferably one that people care about. Note that the parent post speaks in use cases: Ruby is for problem X, Erlang is for problem Y, JavaScript is for problem Z. What is Perl for, and why won't Ruby work just as well?
- pwpwp 16y ago
  emacs? Stop talking in acronyms and obscure names. Same for vim, frankly. Most people younger than me don't get it when you name-check vim. What does that stand for? :P
  - evilduck 16y ago
    The differences I see here are that a) emacs vs. vim has been a holy war that has gone on since both were conceived and is a debate which is often older than the programmers discussing it. To be ignorant of recent language developments or internal acronyms is excusable, to be ignorant of vim/emacs is less so. b) emacs and vim are not specific to any one language. Dropping acronyms that are non-specific to the topic (perl vs ruby, python, whatever) doesn't have some domain specific knowledge attached to it. If you're on either side of the debate, vim can be equally familiar or obscure.
    - pwpwp 16y ago
      Terminology has context. Complaining about an article on perl.org not mentioning what CPAN is, is like complaining about an article on cars.com not mentioning what BMW is.
    - nuxi 16y ago
      Regarding a) - that was emacs vs. vi, not vim. vim was first released in 1991.
- jsrn 16y ago
  > And here's some constructive criticism for the aspiring Perl advocate point taken, thanks. Perhaps the Perl success stories should be mentioned more often, too: Want to launch a one-man search engine? Perl makes the easy things easy and the hard things possible: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2009/03/duck-duck-go-architecture.html http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2009/03/duck-duck-go-arc... Amazon.com, del.icio.us, Craigslist, the BBC? All have significant parts written in Perl: http://www.fischerlaender.net/perl/perl-used-for-web-development http://www.fischerlaender.net/perl/perl-used-for-web-develop... http://perl.apache.org/outstanding/success_stories/bbc.html http://perl.apache.org/outstanding/success_stories/bbc.html
tsuraan 16y ago
CPAN (and the arguably failed attempts to copy it by other language communities) I haven't used perl, but I do use ruby and I'm learning haskell. What does CPAN do that make rubygems and cabal failures? They both work really well from what I can see (especially cabal), but since I don't know perl, my POV is obviously limited. What am I missing out on?
- Ingaz 16y ago
  Hackage, rubygems, PyPi - are all modeled after CPAN
  - tsuraan 16y ago
    Right, modeled after, but I'm wondering why they would be considered failures. Rubygems and cabal both work really well for me, and cabal is both the nicest package management system and the nicest build system I've ever used. I'd love to know why somebody would call it a failure.
    - jsrn 16y ago
      with "failed attempts to copy" I meant they (Rubygems, Hackage, ...) did not succeed (yet?) to replicate the size, diversity, test coverage, community etc. of CPAN. I do agree that they are useful. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
    - zaphar 16y ago
      You obviously have never tried to compile profiling binaries for a haskell I would not call cabal the nicest build system I had used. Cpan beats the pants off it.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - wladimir 16y ago
    Yes, that's clear. But what I don't understand is why the author thinks they have failed? I only have experience with PyPi, combined with easy_install it's an incredibly easy way to install packages and their dependencies.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

lwhi 16y ago

It's not nice to think that marketing shapes the way we see the world - but it does. Programmers are just likely to want to follow fashions as tweens - it's just that they're not so likely to admit it. EDIT: (we're) not so likely to admit it.

Su-Shee 16y ago

Sure, there are plenty of reasons of the whys and whens - on the other hand, we could easily ask "why didn't everyone choose Emacs when textmate's development came to a halt" or "Why didn't people choose Python as their web language of choice when they didn't like PHP" or "Why not Bazaar instead of SVN" or why Ryan Dahl chose JavaScript as a base language for Node.js and not any of Python, Ruby, Perl, Scheme, Lisp or Lua - but JavaScript - and so on. (As others already pointed out below so I'm summing this up in one sentence here..) Thankfully we have plenty of options to choose from nowadays. And yet I'm still convinced that the choice of Git over Bazaar has something to do with the smoothness of Github and with "It's from Linus!", the choice of Ruby/RoR with the image 37signals so nicely projects, that JavaScript's recent rise and massive change in perception comes thanks to Douglas Crockford and Erlang would have probably stayed in its niche if it wasn't for CouchDB. So I was surprised and amazed by the change in perception of Vim over the last year and therefore I blogged about it. And yes, along your examples Perl faced a similar situation around 2000 (so thanks for the well chosen examples) and decided to do Perl 6 to re-ignite the Perl spark. (Let's set aside for a moment wether or not it worked and what happened after that and boy am I sure the second I hit the submit button people will _exactly_ totally get into this subject.. ;) I also didn't ask wether or not one really wants the success of the masses or if it might be a good thing to stay in a well-defined niche with a community of your choice, creating your own culture - as for example shows the Linux distribution Slackware very happily year by year and to a great satisfaction of its users. I also didn't mention how much it might have to do with the age of developers, wether some changes plainly might be a generation thing of "first generation web developers" and "second generation web developers" or how much Apple's regained success does play into all that. But as we can see within the comments below, old Perl cliches aren't really dead and get repeated all over wether or not the subject was Perl's marketing and not Perl's qualities (or the perceived lack thereof...) Or maybe we all get kicked our asses by Lisp next year - thanks to Peter Seibel's Practical Lisp Programming book or "Land of Lisp" and of course Paul Graham and Emacs wins all over. ;)

seanalltogether 16y ago
Predictably Irrational talks about what you are describing here. You see, despite many of these technologies having a smaller install base, what they have done is create a new anchor in technology, which allows them to monopolize the conversation. The iPhone and Rails are the most significant anchors within the past 5 years. You can't make Perl popular by acting like rock stars and making videos on youtube, you can only making Perl popular by creating a new technological anchor for others to hook themselves to.

alttab 16y ago

The clarity of your writing makes this point very clear.