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What does a cookbook do for people who don't cook? Perl is a programming language. CPAN is a bunch of Perl libraries. Perl and CPAN don't do anything for non-de

What does a cookbook do for people who don't cook? Perl is a programming language. CPAN is a bunch of Perl libraries. Perl and CPAN don't do anything for non-developers. [Edit: I see now that the author is saying that there are no significant applications for end-users written in Perl, which is certainly true. I attribute that in part to the difficulty of distributing a reasonably small installer package for a GUI application written in Perl.]

jibiki 17y ago
As far as I can tell, he's saying that there's not a lot of casual software (like games and such) developed in Perl(?) Anyways, Perl is a fantastic programming language for non-developers (e.g., people writing small programs for personal use.)
gaius 17y ago
Vast amounts of code is written by people who don't primarily self-identify as a programmer/developer/whatever. Python is huge within the science/engineering community who want to use NumPy for example, Perl has virtually no presence there.
- frossie 17y ago
  Erm, it does depend on which part of the scientific community you are talking about - we're not all a monolithic Borgian block you know. There are a bunch of non-programmers using the Perl Data Language for example (pdl.perl.org). The real problem in my opinion is that perl has no buzz so is not picking as many new users - we can speculate about the reasons, I personally blame how perl6 has gone for a lot of it though.
- smanek 17y ago
  Much more bioinformatics work is done in Perl than Python. I can't speak for other fields, though
chromatic 17y ago
> I see now that the author is saying that there are no significant applications for end-users written in Perl, which is certainly true. Not really; I meant that I haven't heard of very many. The HN title is excessively misleading. > I attribute that in part to the difficulty of distributing a reasonably small installer package for a GUI application written in Perl. I agree with that.

jibiki 17y ago

As far as I can tell, he's saying that there's not a lot of casual software (like games and such) developed in Perl(?) Anyways, Perl is a fantastic programming language for non-developers (e.g., people writing small programs for personal use.)

gaius 17y ago

Vast amounts of code is written by people who don't primarily self-identify as a programmer/developer/whatever. Python is huge within the science/engineering community who want to use NumPy for example, Perl has virtually no presence there.

frossie 17y ago
Erm, it does depend on which part of the scientific community you are talking about - we're not all a monolithic Borgian block you know. There are a bunch of non-programmers using the Perl Data Language for example (pdl.perl.org). The real problem in my opinion is that perl has no buzz so is not picking as many new users - we can speculate about the reasons, I personally blame how perl6 has gone for a lot of it though.
smanek 17y ago
Much more bioinformatics work is done in Perl than Python. I can't speak for other fields, though

chromatic 17y ago

> I see now that the author is saying that there are no significant applications for end-users written in Perl, which is certainly true. Not really; I meant that I haven't heard of very many. The HN title is excessively misleading. > I attribute that in part to the difficulty of distributing a reasonably small installer package for a GUI application written in Perl. I agree with that.