Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
NOTE: use Perl; is on undef hiatus. You can read content, but you can't post it. More info will be forthcoming forthcomingly.

All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

use Perl Log In

Log In

[ Create a new account ]

jdporter (36)

jdporter
  (email not shown publicly)
http://users.starpower.net/j.porter
Yahoo! ID: johndporter (Add User, Send Message)

Journal of jdporter (36)

Thursday May 30, 2002
11:29 AM

Perl is dead

[ #5311 ]

Perl is dead.

Or at least, Perl.com is dead.

Or at least, the Columns section of Perl.com is dead.

The last P6 Digest was recorded on March 12.
The last P5 Digest was recorded on October 21, 2001.

The last entry in "Off the Wall" was Larry's State of the Onion 5, from last July. And the last Apocalypse mentioned was #2.

The latest Success Story (in the Columns section) is from last August. (Yes, there are more recent Success Stories, but apparently they exist only in Betsy's blog.)

Stale website.

As if there weren't already good reasons not to bother with Perl.com.

Perl.com is a crock.


List all Journal entries
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Perl is dead 11 Comments More | Login | Reply /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More | Login | Reply
Loading... please wait.
  • While some of your observations may seem true, please don't check the gauge of an open source project with a website run by a third party. Especially if that third party has (sort of) nothing to do with Perl development.

    All of that said, Perl.com has excellent weekly articles. If their columns suck, it's not because the language does.
    --
    Casey West
    • Geez, Casey, I think you're being just a little too defensive of Perl (the language).

      I used a provocative subject just to bring the problems at Perl.com to readers' attention. I have absolutely no dead beef with Perl (the language). You know me! I'm a Perl fanatic. I just wish Perl's highest-profile web site didn't suck so bad.

      • I used a provocative subject just to bring the problems at Perl.com to readers' attention.

        Why not bring them to my attention a little more directly, then I can do something about them? You could have dropped me an email, for instance, instead of hoping I'd chance across your journal entry.

        We've got columns coming from a couple of writers, and I'm soon going part-time to devote more time to writing on perl.com. If you'd like to write a P5P or P6 digest column, please let me know. Hopefully we can get the

        • Are you responsible for making the whole site work? It's not just the p5p/p6 columns; there seem to be buboes of staleness peppered around the site, e.g. the Off The Wall stuff, as I mentioned.

          There's another symptom, I'm wondering if you've seen. On use.perl, there's the p5p news box, which just contains links to the internals of the p5p digest page on perl.com. You'll notice that the current headlines, such as "5.7.2 is out", are wrong. I'm supposing that use.perl is getting that stuff via an rdf fee
          • Are you responsible for making the whole site work?
            No; I'm responsible for commissioning and editing content for it.

            It's not just the p5p/p6 columns;
            The problem with these is that, while everyone is interested in reading them, nobody is interested in writing them. Hence, they don't get written. It's a community thing; if you want the community to improve, improve it.

            there seem to be buboes of staleness peppered around the site, e.g. the Off The Wall stuff, as I mentioned.
            Yep. I'm not denying

          • I am such an idiot. The problem I talked about -- where the p5p news box on use.perl seems to indicate newer p5p column content than can actually be found on perl.com -- is completely not. It's actually several installments behind, pointing to July of last year. I guess I can't read dates. Sorry, everyone.
  • Sounds like just a problem with linking to stories from appropriate places.
    • If that's your euphemism for "editorial apathy", then I guess I have to agree with you. :-)
      • Hi John. I'd like an apology.
        • Well, "apathy" is probably not the most accurate word I could have chosen. To paraphrase the old yarn, "Never ascribe to apathy what can be reasonably accounted for by lack of time (or other resources)."

          So, in consideration of the fact that you do indeed care a great deal about the health of the perl community, I apologize.

          While we're on the subject... maybe some day you'll feel like apologizing to me for the harsh things you said which induced me to bail on the p6 project.

          All of which makes me wonder..

          • I bailed on p6 because it was like trying to drink from a firehouse. The only person who made harsh comments to me was Tom Christiansen. That's par for the course, and besides, everything he told me was right, anyway. I don't remember any other particular harshness, although there were some arguments that should never have happened. I CERTAINLY don't recall any from Simon.

            "Perl.com is stale" is a good observation that deserves to be made (although I disagree). "Perl.com is a crock" is just being mean

            --
            J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
Stories, comments, journals, and other submissions on use Perl; are Copyright 1998-2006, their respective owners.