Why Idea systems should be remixed [was Re: Perl's Glory Days Are Behind It, But It Isn't Going Anywhere]

On Thu, 31 Jan 2013 09:10:47 +0100
Johan Vromans <[email protected]> wrote:

> http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/01/29/0235220/perls-glory-days-ar=
e-behind-it-but-it-isnt-going-anywhere
>=20
> We know we suck at marketing, but is there anything we are going to do
> about it?
>=20

To quote Larry Wall from http://www.perl.com/pub/1997/wall/keynote.html :

<<<<<
I have a book on my bookshelf that I've never read, but that has a great ti=
tle.
It says, "All Truth is God's Truth." And I believe that. The most viable be=
lief
systems are those that can reach out and incorporate new ideas, new memes, =
new
metaphors, new interfaces, new extensions, new ways of doing things. My goal
this year is to try to get Perl to reach out and cooperate with Java. I kno=
w it
may be difficult for some of you to swallow, but Java is not the enemy. Nor=
 is
Lisp, or Python, or Tcl. That is not to say that these languages don't have
good and bad points. I am not a cultural relativist. Nor am I a linguistic
relativist. In case you hadn't noticed. :-)
>>>>>

Throughout history, various religions, cultures, human languages, works of =
art,
and other idea systems, were mixed-and-matched cross-pollinated one another,
were forked and splinterred, and brought new memes into everywhere. An idea
system that did not incorporate ideas from elsewhere quickly became stagnat=
ed
and inbred, and were then largely forgotten.

Furthermore, some idea systems =E2=80=9Cdied=E2=80=9D. Few people nowadays =
are pure Stoicists
(see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism ) and even the most devote Jews don't
take the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentateuch_%28disambiguation%29 to its
letter, and no one nowadays wants to program in Fortran I, COBOL or ALGOL
(and yes, programming languages are, aside from their utility, idea systems=
).
But the idea systems behind these languages live on.

The Perl idea system has proven incredibly influential on most programming
languages that came after it, so it has won. Maybe most people no longer fi=
nd
it adequate to use Perl 5, or think that some more in vogue languages are
better, but the Perl influence lives on. I'm not a Perl tribalist, in the s=
ense
that if my customer prefers something else, then I use it, and try to make =
the
best of the situation, even though I'm not 100% happy, which like I note in
http://shlomifish.livejournal.com/1747.html is something that Cognitive The=
rapy
now recommends to do based on Stoicism. And I've started to write some proj=
ects
in Ruby.

People have been crying that Perl is dead, but it is very much alive, just =
as
most people in the United States and in Great Britain have not heard of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great or of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin , but their incredible legacy still li=
ves
on, and many people carry the =E2=80=9Cmemes=E2=80=9D that they originate o=
r establish in their
mind and hearts.

So what should we do:

1. Continue to improve perl, Perl and CPAN. We cannot have perl 5 stagnate,=
 and
the Perl 6 implementations are still incomplete and tend to be
under-performing.=20

2. Don't worry about people using Perl instead of something else that still
carries its legacy, or different legacies.

3. Continue to import new ideas from other places.

4. Continue our tendency to say that =E2=80=9CThere's more than one way to =
do it=E2=80=9D
implies that some of these ways are using other programming languages, and =
that
some languages got some things right more than Perl 5 or even Perl 6, or ju=
st
differently - http://shlomif-tech.livejournal.com/57811.html .

5. Tell people that newer is not necessarily better.

6. Don't worry about battling Perl against statistical accusations of
stagnations like TIOBE , GitHub statistics, Google trends, etc. , because t=
hese
things are silly =E2=80=9CMy schwartz is bigger than yours=E2=80=9D which t=
he uninformed masses
may fall for, but intelligent and wise people, who are the true movers and
doers, don=E2=80=99t.

7. Finally, the language called =E2=80=9CPerl 5=E2=80=9D that we will use 2=
0 years from now will
be very different than the perl-5.000, but it will be more modern, more
adapted to the times and hopefully better. And I'm almost sure that Perl=E2=
=80=99s
legacy will live on and Perl will be remembered, even if no one uses someth=
ing
called =E2=80=9CPerl=E2=80=9D.

-----------------------------------

I hope I made myself clear. Furthermore, a lot of recent trends can be dism=
issed
as silly, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcat -s, but lolcats
have such a low barrier for entry (almost everyone can take a photo of a ca=
t, or
whatever and caption it using Inkscape or whatever), and a lot of
lolcats are funny or amusing (yet often insightful). It is a whole new idea
system and a very subversive at that, so much that both China and Iran bloc=
ked
the Cheezburger network in their firewall, because they are afraid of it
weakening their political power-structures and dogma (and as silly as it may
seem, they are right about that).

The important thing to note is that one should =E2=80=9Cembrace change=E2=
=80=9D. See:

http://www.robcottingham.ca/cartoon/archive/this-brain-this-brain-fire/

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

--=20
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
What does "Zionism" mean? - http://shlom.in/def-zionism

When Chuck Norris uses git, he takes a coffee break after initiating every =
git
commit. And then he waits for the commit to finish.

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