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in reply to Call for Action: YouTube Perl stuff

To me, that makes about as much sense as prosletyzing about, say, wrenches.   Or engaging in a knock-down drag-out discussion about wrenches vs. screwdrivers being the “best” way to hammer a nail.

Remember, most software is not a new project:  it is legacy code.   You dance with the one who brung ’ya.   You don’t arbitrarily introduce new tools and techniques into an established mix because there is both a cost and a risk in doing that.   You don’t rewrite an established system because you can’t.

Businesses care about what the software does, and that it does it.

Instead of worrying about which language is or isn’t popular in some on-line survey, make it your business ... because it is “your business!” .. to familiarize yourself with as many language tools as you can.   What people seek, and pay for, is the well-seasoned ability to walk into any established situation, to adapt to it quickly and correctly, and to become productive, whatever that may mean.   Could be Perl, could be something else, probably is many somethings at once.   “Many somethings at once” is status-normal in any big, old shop, and in plenty of new ones.

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Re^2: Call for Action: YouTube Perl stuff
by Propaganda.pm_rj (Acolyte) on Apr 16, 2013 at 13:53 UTC
    To me, that makes about as much sense as prosletyzing about, say, wrenches. Or engaging in a knock-down drag-out discussion about wrenches vs. screwdrivers being the “best” way to hammer a nail.

    If you have that perception, that is of course unfortunate and might need some perception fine-tuning on your side. The - really simple - gist of what I've written is, that there is a huge imbalance between (and we take just ONE example here) e.g. the number of Python and Perl videos on YouTube.

    One can develop that further and talk about the resulting number of TIOBE-relevant hits (there seems to be a constant factor plusminus 100:1 for any programming language), but that is not the gist it's a side effect. We at propaganda.pm came to know of this significant imbalance only because we inspected the TIOBE index computations and verified the measured numbers.

    If you do care about propagation of the Perl language, you may hear the Call for action and think/do something about delivering more Perl content to YouTube. Because as for newbies to programming in general, YT is much more likely the 1st station than - say - perlmonks.org.

    Of course, if you do not care about propagation of the Perl programming language, simply ignore that Call for action. It's as easy as that.

    Remember, most software is not a new project: it is legacy code.

    True, but utterly irrelevant here, as we look only at the new projects. Our goal should be that most of the new projects would be done in Perl - if Perl was a suitable language for it ("suitable" - probably no one will/should write e.g. device drivers in Perl).

    You're basically right in the rest of your post, but it's a different opera.

    propaganda.pm - Not just another Perl Mongers Group.
[reply]

      Why don't you just produce youtube stuff?

      Cause those python videos on you tube weren't produced because some something-or-other made a call-for-action

[reply]

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