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> In the meantime, Perl works for us. It's not cool or sexy > but it gets the job done. What is not cool about Perl? You don't need to transition to a new fram

> In the meantime, Perl works for us. It's not cool or sexy > but it gets the job done. What is not cool about Perl? You don't need to transition to a new framework outside of Perl. You can upgrade your backend by investing your time in rewriting the Perl code to newer standards.

laumars 14y ago
It's hard to find good Perl developers and even harder to run multi-language libraries for the same online portal (ie same site, domain, database, hosting environment: hardware, OSs....and so on).
- rjbond3rd 14y ago
  I disagree. First, it's hard to find good developers, period. S econd, in general, good developers are hard to find by design (e.g., to avoid recruiters, but also because they are most tof the time already doing interesting work). Lastly, yes, it's hard to find good Perl programmers to do boring work, under boring conditions, at a boring wage. But then that's true of all good developers. Try to find a Rails programmer to remediate crappy code (I've tried).
  - laumars 14y ago
    You're missing my point, PHP developers that know how to build websites are available ten to the dozen. But Perl most of the Perl developers we've tried to recruit over the last 18 months are either completely clueless at writing RESTful APIs or just terrible developers (sometimes even both). We've had far more success at hiring good PHP developers and teaching them Perl then we have had at finding the Perl developers that can write web technologies. But this might just be a facet of our location (a suburb that's more than an hour away from any city), so all the developers of "niche" languages (such as Perl has sadly become) tend to get drawn to the city and higher wages. Where as those who are still good developers but not as money driven tend to pick the more popular languages because they'll pick the work in the area they want to work. (that's probably an unfair generalization statement, but it's true for the local area where I live).
    - rjbond3rd 14y ago
      Very cool! Build vs. buy, you're building, everyone wins (plus you're a great employer for training your devs). What's your product or service? Now Perl programmers are now seeking -you- out :) And I'm sure you already know about the YAPC job fair: http://www.yapcna.org/yn2013/job-fair.html http://www.yapcna.org/yn2013/job-fair.html
      - laumars 14y ago
        Thanks for the YAPC link. We're UK based though, so quite a way away from Texas. :( We do online games (amongst other things). Though I don't want to go into too many details as I try to keep a degree of anonymity online.
  - sabat 14y ago
    Try to find a Rails programmer to remediate crappy code (I've tried). It's easy to find good Rails programmers, as long as you aren't fixated on them doing facetime.
redbad 14y ago
> What is not cool about Perl? Almost everything is not cool about Perl. Perl felt crufty and ancient even when I was learning it fifteen years ago. It's only gotten weirder, cruftier, and more ancient since then.
- smacktoward 14y ago
  I dunno, it's been nearly as long since I learned Perl (or used it much) but the stuff I've seen out of the "modern Perl" movement (http://onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/index.html http://onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/index.html) looks a lot cleaner and more, well, modern than the Perl I used to live with. You can still write "crufty and ancient" Perl, in other words, but you don't have to.
wuest 14y ago
> What is not cool about Perl? Perl is my first interpreted language. It has a very special place in my heart, even if it was awkward at first to get used to it coming from a C background. Perl will always be a cool kid.
- windexh8er 14y ago
  I think it's interesting when people tie sentiment to coding choices. As previously stated, I could never wrap my head around the horrid syntax and the feeling that if you didn't know it from the beginning it was going to be a long, hard trek in doing so. As for 'cool' I'm not so sure. Perl will be a niche sandbox for quite a while, but most run-ins with Perl (as of late) have been trying to remove it for something else. I think choosing a more accepted language has legs for a variety of reasons including code portability and long-term maintainability, both stemming from the fact that if there's only one guy maintaining all of the Perl code then that's a very-bad-thing. But, that's just me. To wax nostalgic on Perl and use that as a basis for use-case seems, at least somewhat, reckless.
  - justizin 14y ago
    Perl was Ruby before Ruby was around to be the ugly cool kid.

laumars 14y ago

It's hard to find good Perl developers and even harder to run multi-language libraries for the same online portal (ie same site, domain, database, hosting environment: hardware, OSs....and so on).

rjbond3rd 14y ago
I disagree. First, it's hard to find good developers, period. S econd, in general, good developers are hard to find by design (e.g., to avoid recruiters, but also because they are most tof the time already doing interesting work). Lastly, yes, it's hard to find good Perl programmers to do boring work, under boring conditions, at a boring wage. But then that's true of all good developers. Try to find a Rails programmer to remediate crappy code (I've tried).
- laumars 14y ago
  You're missing my point, PHP developers that know how to build websites are available ten to the dozen. But Perl most of the Perl developers we've tried to recruit over the last 18 months are either completely clueless at writing RESTful APIs or just terrible developers (sometimes even both). We've had far more success at hiring good PHP developers and teaching them Perl then we have had at finding the Perl developers that can write web technologies. But this might just be a facet of our location (a suburb that's more than an hour away from any city), so all the developers of "niche" languages (such as Perl has sadly become) tend to get drawn to the city and higher wages. Where as those who are still good developers but not as money driven tend to pick the more popular languages because they'll pick the work in the area they want to work. (that's probably an unfair generalization statement, but it's true for the local area where I live).
  - rjbond3rd 14y ago
    Very cool! Build vs. buy, you're building, everyone wins (plus you're a great employer for training your devs). What's your product or service? Now Perl programmers are now seeking -you- out :) And I'm sure you already know about the YAPC job fair: http://www.yapcna.org/yn2013/job-fair.html http://www.yapcna.org/yn2013/job-fair.html
    - laumars 14y ago
      Thanks for the YAPC link. We're UK based though, so quite a way away from Texas. :( We do online games (amongst other things). Though I don't want to go into too many details as I try to keep a degree of anonymity online.
- sabat 14y ago
  Try to find a Rails programmer to remediate crappy code (I've tried). It's easy to find good Rails programmers, as long as you aren't fixated on them doing facetime.

redbad 14y ago

> What is not cool about Perl? Almost everything is not cool about Perl. Perl felt crufty and ancient even when I was learning it fifteen years ago. It's only gotten weirder, cruftier, and more ancient since then.

smacktoward 14y ago
I dunno, it's been nearly as long since I learned Perl (or used it much) but the stuff I've seen out of the "modern Perl" movement (http://onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/index.html http://onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/index.html) looks a lot cleaner and more, well, modern than the Perl I used to live with. You can still write "crufty and ancient" Perl, in other words, but you don't have to.

wuest 14y ago

> What is not cool about Perl? Perl is my first interpreted language. It has a very special place in my heart, even if it was awkward at first to get used to it coming from a C background. Perl will always be a cool kid.

windexh8er 14y ago
I think it's interesting when people tie sentiment to coding choices. As previously stated, I could never wrap my head around the horrid syntax and the feeling that if you didn't know it from the beginning it was going to be a long, hard trek in doing so. As for 'cool' I'm not so sure. Perl will be a niche sandbox for quite a while, but most run-ins with Perl (as of late) have been trying to remove it for something else. I think choosing a more accepted language has legs for a variety of reasons including code portability and long-term maintainability, both stemming from the fact that if there's only one guy maintaining all of the Perl code then that's a very-bad-thing. But, that's just me. To wax nostalgic on Perl and use that as a basis for use-case seems, at least somewhat, reckless.
- justizin 14y ago
  Perl was Ruby before Ruby was around to be the ugly cool kid.