Re: Perl "Going the way of the dinosaur"

Aaron Trevena wrote:
> 
> I've been doing Perl almost exclusively since I graduated from uni in
> 2000 and I'm still surprised by how widely used it is - in fact I
> think my last few jobs and contracts have all been in places that your
> average Java or Python programmer would say "Perl wouldn't work" -
> naturally it has, hence my working there - usually on new projects and
> new code :  High availability Aviation reporting for airlines,
> logistics companies and private pilots, Massive email
> scanning/archiving systems, and a high traffic classifieds site - all
> with large codebases, complex systems and high expectations for
> uptime, and correctness.
> 

Unfortunately, lots of my previous corporate employers did not like the 
idea of advertising the use of PERL (or any other language, framework, 
technology), thinking that they are asking for trouble when they reveal 
details of their core project/platform/technology, claiming 
confidentiality(!?) reasons. Obviously, not placing the PERL camel (or 
other logo) on a website is the best security practice :-) .

Then you have politics. In a well known Sun based shop that I worked, 
when it was discovered that Java did not cut the deal with some major 
text post-processing activity and PERL gave an elegant (read: more 
memory consumption friendly->aka workable) solution, management was so 
glad that the problem was solved. When, however, we asked to publish 
something on a journal/website, in order to promote PERL, some shop and 
Sun managers were not quite happy with the idea, going as far as warning 
folks with disciplinary action, if something leaked on a mailing list, 
etc.  Ehmm...Anyway.

I think it is a serious issue that not only discourages tool knowledge 
dissemination but it really hurts open source development in general. It 
is one thing to follow closed source development models and yet another 
to employ open source platforms to complement a closed source solution. 
  The least thing you can do when somebody saves the day, is to 
acknowledge the tools employed in the solution, mention their 
involvement and encourage more people to engage with the technologies 
involved without red tape for politics/confidentiality purposes.

GM