You missed the point I made a couple lines later. As an IT guy, I have a bunch of choices of languages, frameworks, platforms, whatever. I have no choice but to pick and choose what I spend my limited brainpower on, and choosing X means not choosing Y. Choosing A, B, C, and D means getting familiar with them all, but master of none; choosing only A and B means mastery of one or both.
Along comes Perl 6, a language whose predecessor I last used 10 years ago, after I've made my professional repertoire heavily dependent on PHP/Drupal, Python/Django, and ASP.NET/C#. If I try to return to Perl in its new and unproven iteration, that means less attention/use for some part of my existing skills.
This is the problem Perl has now. In the 90s, it was the de facto standard scripting language. Now it's competing with a bunch of other languages (with their own software ecosystems) that are arguably comparable, if not better in certain ways. What does Perl 6 offer me that others don't, that justifies budgeting some of my time and mental space towards it? So far I haven't seen anything compelling enough to switch for.
Growing the community with new members, rather than stealing community from others, is a viable strategy. But I don't see Perl winning there against PHP.
The reason PHP is where it is today is because it was easy for web hosting companies to offer it, and it was easier to make PHP pages than to make Perl CGI scripts. It became the entry level web programming language, and that's how and why it caught on and flourished despite being manifestly worse than Perl and Python. And what holds back Python and Ruby is that they're not easily offered in shared hosting environments. How is Perl 6 going to compete there?
None of those languages have anything like the CPAN
CPAN is overrated. Those 85,000 modules contain duplicates, inconsistent coding standards and interfaces, and cover a wide variety of things I just don't care about. And the last time I looked at CPAN for something, in 2000, it was pure frustration to me.
What I have in PHP (which I'll happily stipulate is a kidney stone of a language) is Drupal, which offers, for web stuff, a relatively clean and complete framework that I can use for 90% of what I want to do. In other words, the stuff that you get with PHP like Drupal is real-world stuff that I can make money working with and actually covers the largest amount of common use-cases.
None of those languages are as malleable as Perl 5
Malleability is overrated. I don't view every programming task as an opportunity to discover a new and unique way to accomplish something. I'd say Python actually wins in this regard: there's usually a right way to do something, which means that there's a body of stable practice from which you can diverge if you want to, but don't have to. You've got guidance. However, if pure flexibility is your thing, you've got Ruby.
If you thought Larry's job was to make sure that everyone is happy and doing exactly what he thinks they should do, you've never understood Larry or the Perl community.
I thought Larry's job was to provide a certain amount of leadership and direction that kept the community reasonably focussed on releasing something useful, rather than take a 10 year sabbatical discussing something that wins vaporware awards.
If I'm programming in Python, then I'm not programming in Perl.
In the 90s, programming on the web meant programming in Perl; in the Unix world, it meant either Perl or SH (assuming you weren't going straight to C).
The problem for Perl 6 is that it has competitors now that are of arguably the same quality, if not better for various arguable reasons, and that IT professionals have an embarrassingly large array of choices in technologies to use, so much so that they consciously limit what they learn to keep it manageable. I haven't bothered with Ruby because my head's already full of languages and platforms and libraries and frameworks. I have no problem with Ruby (or Perl, for that matter). I just don't have the bandwidth. At this point, choosing to go back to Perl would mean abandoning something else that's taking up brainspace. If Perl 6 doesn't offer a big advantage to me over PHP or Python (and their supporting cast of software), then I have no reason to look at it.
If Perl 6 doesn't steal back some mindshare, it will become a niche language where it was once the King.
Without disputing anything you say, how is this different from PHP, Python, or Ruby? Is there a reasonable chance that Perl 6 will regain the ground it lost to those competitors when it languished under Larry Wall's negligent stewardship?
It's not hip to bash Perl these days, it's actually a sign of old-fogeyism.
There's a lot of pent-up irritation with Perl. It comes from the fact that a large number of us started with Perl, and watched it languish as competitors like PHP and Python and then Ruby ate its community. Then Perl 6 was announced, and Perl loyalism was given a shot in the arm--whee, Perl will evolve and take back its rightful place as king of scripting languages! Then it languished again for more than a decade while the famously squirrelly Larry Wall gave talks on religion and postmodernism in programming. Perl won't die; Perl 6 will find a community. But Perl as king of scripting languages, as the indispensable tool in your toolbox, as the mark of the geek, is a dead letter now, and to anyone who invested a lot in mastering it, that stings a bit.
Because a significant factor in Perl's success in the 90s was the absence of competitors that were similarly powerful and accessible. Nowadays Perl 6 has to compete for community-share with PHP, Python, and Ruby. Will Perl 6 be good enough, and come with enough supporting software like web frameworks, to steal mindshare back from those communities?
It's success largely stemmed from an implementation of regular expressions.
And the absence of comparably useful alternatives, something that's no longer the case.
I would be interested in seeing a competitive analysis between Perl 6, Python, Ruby, and PHP for performance and features. My suspicion is that Perl 6, even if it delivers everything it promises, will still fall behind the others, or not be significantly ahead enough to tempt large scale switching from them back to Perl.
I think you mean "as opposed to the denialists who release petitions with 30,000 names on them, of whom 29,900 either have no scientific expertise in climate change, or flat-out deny that they signed the petition."
I'm working on an independently funded project right now with a marketing exec, a UI guy, and a flash dev from Nokia. They're all good, smart people; they all refer to Nokia as "Jokia". The exec is running the project, and is continually astounded that the money she pays us consultants 1) actually gets her something, and 2) is paid out after delivering something on time.
Put Nokia in the same bin as Dell, where years of focus on cost-management has destroyed an innovative company that once led the market.
If the care is worse, then why do the UHC countries all have a longer life expectancy than Americans? Canadian life expectancy is over two years greater.
There's a variety of reasons that Americans pay more for worse health care overall: unnecessary tests and procedures soaking money out of generous health plans; widespread lack of preventative care that results in high emergency-care costs; inefficient and costly administration; profit-taking by parties at every level.
I've experienced both American and Canadian health care, and while American health care does seem superficially better in some ways, it's demonstrably worse overall, and individually I'm not sure it's better either, just shinier. I went to the U.S. doctor complaining of flu-like symptoms. He prescribed antibiotics, which are useless for a viral infection; I had an injection of penicillin in my ass (again, useless for a viral infection). I received a prescription for Tylenol 3s in case my sore throat was bothersome (codeine for a sore throat? Really?). And on the way out I dealt with one of six staffers behind the desk, that number being necessary because five are required to deal with the various insurance companies; a doctor in Canada would share one with another doctor because that's all that's needed. If you've got a good health plan, you get luxury health care in the U.S., which isn't demonstrably better, just more expensive.
The U.S. could cut its overall health care costs by 40% if it implemented true universal health care, and would extend the average lifespan by a couple years as a bonus. Canada, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden... all have UHC, all spend around 55% of what is spent in the U.S., and all have longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality--basically they all beat the U.S. on any aggregate measure.
In the U.S., the standard calculation for the cost of an employee is 140-150% of wages--the overage covers the costs of administration and benefits. In Canada, it's 110-115%.
Your fucked up health care system is far more expensive than it needs to be, and doesn't give you better health care. Want America to regain a competitive advantage on the world stage? Implement real UHC.
Aristotle was a student of Plato, and lived a long life that didn't end in execution. Socrates was the teacher of Plato who drank Hemlock after being sentenced to death the by the Athenians.
Occam's razor tells me the reason you believe that is you were spoon fed sexism as a cause, and sought out evidence to back your belief.
You'd be wrong about the spoon-fed bit, and what does it matter anyway if the evidence is valid?
And how does one manage to accout/correct for child care since a significant portion of the female population leaves the work force to have babies(something only they can do)?
By adjusting your study about pay disparity for "comparable experience". In other, a woman who has 15 years in IT over 20 years gets put into the 15 year bucket, not the 20 year bucket. It's a bit more sophisticated than that, but I think the idea is clear.
My argument has centuries of history and decades of studies behind it. Yours has a desperate attempt to justify what you see around you, which is something that nobody disputes, that women are a tiny minority in IT.
My argument is consistent with observed fact. It's a hypothesis, one that could theoretically be born out by doing a poll and asking to what degree people were interested and involved with technology from an early age.
In other words, anecdata.
Yours is based on the premise that men and women must be equal at everything, ergo any disparity must be because of "sexism".
That is not my premise. Men and women are different in many ways that directly impact their participation in particular professions. My premise is that we have a demonstrated history of sexism, mound upon mound of research backing up that conclusion, and that what's occurring in IT is almost exactly what we've seen elsewhere, decades ago.
So we're down to the explicitly circular argument: Men are better nerds. How do you know this? They're paid more. Why are they paid more? Because they're better nerds.
You know more competent males than competent females in IT because females are radically under-represented in IT. Seriously, you consider yourself a geek with such weak-sauce logic skills?
Slashdot Mirror
I was a afraid he might have left out an important step.
It's called "Civ Rev", and it's awesome. It's basically Civ 1 with a lot of polish, and takes about three hours to play through a full game.
Your existence is very joyless, isn't it?
Why not just not be a dickhead? Lots of people manage it every day.
I got some dust in my eye while reading it.
You missed the point I made a couple lines later. As an IT guy, I have a bunch of choices of languages, frameworks, platforms, whatever. I have no choice but to pick and choose what I spend my limited brainpower on, and choosing X means not choosing Y. Choosing A, B, C, and D means getting familiar with them all, but master of none; choosing only A and B means mastery of one or both.
Along comes Perl 6, a language whose predecessor I last used 10 years ago, after I've made my professional repertoire heavily dependent on PHP/Drupal, Python/Django, and ASP.NET/C#. If I try to return to Perl in its new and unproven iteration, that means less attention/use for some part of my existing skills.
This is the problem Perl has now. In the 90s, it was the de facto standard scripting language. Now it's competing with a bunch of other languages (with their own software ecosystems) that are arguably comparable, if not better in certain ways. What does Perl 6 offer me that others don't, that justifies budgeting some of my time and mental space towards it? So far I haven't seen anything compelling enough to switch for.
Growing the community with new members, rather than stealing community from others, is a viable strategy. But I don't see Perl winning there against PHP.
The reason PHP is where it is today is because it was easy for web hosting companies to offer it, and it was easier to make PHP pages than to make Perl CGI scripts. It became the entry level web programming language, and that's how and why it caught on and flourished despite being manifestly worse than Perl and Python. And what holds back Python and Ruby is that they're not easily offered in shared hosting environments. How is Perl 6 going to compete there?
CPAN is overrated. Those 85,000 modules contain duplicates, inconsistent coding standards and interfaces, and cover a wide variety of things I just don't care about. And the last time I looked at CPAN for something, in 2000, it was pure frustration to me.
What I have in PHP (which I'll happily stipulate is a kidney stone of a language) is Drupal, which offers, for web stuff, a relatively clean and complete framework that I can use for 90% of what I want to do. In other words, the stuff that you get with PHP like Drupal is real-world stuff that I can make money working with and actually covers the largest amount of common use-cases.
Malleability is overrated. I don't view every programming task as an opportunity to discover a new and unique way to accomplish something. I'd say Python actually wins in this regard: there's usually a right way to do something, which means that there's a body of stable practice from which you can diverge if you want to, but don't have to. You've got guidance. However, if pure flexibility is your thing, you've got Ruby.
I thought Larry's job was to provide a certain amount of leadership and direction that kept the community reasonably focussed on releasing something useful, rather than take a 10 year sabbatical discussing something that wins vaporware awards.
If I'm programming in Python, then I'm not programming in Perl.
In the 90s, programming on the web meant programming in Perl; in the Unix world, it meant either Perl or SH (assuming you weren't going straight to C).
The problem for Perl 6 is that it has competitors now that are of arguably the same quality, if not better for various arguable reasons, and that IT professionals have an embarrassingly large array of choices in technologies to use, so much so that they consciously limit what they learn to keep it manageable. I haven't bothered with Ruby because my head's already full of languages and platforms and libraries and frameworks. I have no problem with Ruby (or Perl, for that matter). I just don't have the bandwidth. At this point, choosing to go back to Perl would mean abandoning something else that's taking up brainspace. If Perl 6 doesn't offer a big advantage to me over PHP or Python (and their supporting cast of software), then I have no reason to look at it.
If Perl 6 doesn't steal back some mindshare, it will become a niche language where it was once the King.
Without disputing anything you say, how is this different from PHP, Python, or Ruby? Is there a reasonable chance that Perl 6 will regain the ground it lost to those competitors when it languished under Larry Wall's negligent stewardship?
It's not hip to bash Perl these days, it's actually a sign of old-fogeyism.
There's a lot of pent-up irritation with Perl. It comes from the fact that a large number of us started with Perl, and watched it languish as competitors like PHP and Python and then Ruby ate its community. Then Perl 6 was announced, and Perl loyalism was given a shot in the arm--whee, Perl will evolve and take back its rightful place as king of scripting languages! Then it languished again for more than a decade while the famously squirrelly Larry Wall gave talks on religion and postmodernism in programming. Perl won't die; Perl 6 will find a community. But Perl as king of scripting languages, as the indispensable tool in your toolbox, as the mark of the geek, is a dead letter now, and to anyone who invested a lot in mastering it, that stings a bit.
Because a significant factor in Perl's success in the 90s was the absence of competitors that were similarly powerful and accessible. Nowadays Perl 6 has to compete for community-share with PHP, Python, and Ruby. Will Perl 6 be good enough, and come with enough supporting software like web frameworks, to steal mindshare back from those communities?
And the absence of comparably useful alternatives, something that's no longer the case.
I would be interested in seeing a competitive analysis between Perl 6, Python, Ruby, and PHP for performance and features. My suspicion is that Perl 6, even if it delivers everything it promises, will still fall behind the others, or not be significantly ahead enough to tempt large scale switching from them back to Perl.
I think you mean "as opposed to the denialists who release petitions with 30,000 names on them, of whom 29,900 either have no scientific expertise in climate change, or flat-out deny that they signed the petition."
Peter Jackson had to sue New Line Cinema to get paid for LotR. New Line claimed they lost money on the trilogy.
I could build a match stick house on a gasoline foundation with a blowtorch door bell and no one would say squat.
God, I want to live here. Or at least send out party invites.
I'm working on an independently funded project right now with a marketing exec, a UI guy, and a flash dev from Nokia. They're all good, smart people; they all refer to Nokia as "Jokia". The exec is running the project, and is continually astounded that the money she pays us consultants 1) actually gets her something, and 2) is paid out after delivering something on time.
Put Nokia in the same bin as Dell, where years of focus on cost-management has destroyed an innovative company that once led the market.
If the care is worse, then why do the UHC countries all have a longer life expectancy than Americans? Canadian life expectancy is over two years greater.
There's a variety of reasons that Americans pay more for worse health care overall: unnecessary tests and procedures soaking money out of generous health plans; widespread lack of preventative care that results in high emergency-care costs; inefficient and costly administration; profit-taking by parties at every level.
I've experienced both American and Canadian health care, and while American health care does seem superficially better in some ways, it's demonstrably worse overall, and individually I'm not sure it's better either, just shinier. I went to the U.S. doctor complaining of flu-like symptoms. He prescribed antibiotics, which are useless for a viral infection; I had an injection of penicillin in my ass (again, useless for a viral infection). I received a prescription for Tylenol 3s in case my sore throat was bothersome (codeine for a sore throat? Really?). And on the way out I dealt with one of six staffers behind the desk, that number being necessary because five are required to deal with the various insurance companies; a doctor in Canada would share one with another doctor because that's all that's needed. If you've got a good health plan, you get luxury health care in the U.S., which isn't demonstrably better, just more expensive.
Want to cut labor costs in the U.S.?
The U.S. could cut its overall health care costs by 40% if it implemented true universal health care, and would extend the average lifespan by a couple years as a bonus. Canada, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden... all have UHC, all spend around 55% of what is spent in the U.S., and all have longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality--basically they all beat the U.S. on any aggregate measure.
In the U.S., the standard calculation for the cost of an employee is 140-150% of wages--the overage covers the costs of administration and benefits. In Canada, it's 110-115%.
Your fucked up health care system is far more expensive than it needs to be, and doesn't give you better health care. Want America to regain a competitive advantage on the world stage? Implement real UHC.
Aristotle was a student of Plato, and lived a long life that didn't end in execution. Socrates was the teacher of Plato who drank Hemlock after being sentenced to death the by the Athenians.
Your e-peen is awesomely huge.
I don't doubt that you're like many geeks here. I don't see what difference that makes when IT is a vastly wider profession than the readership of /.
Occam's razor tells me the reason you believe that is you were spoon fed sexism as a cause, and sought out evidence to back your belief.
You'd be wrong about the spoon-fed bit, and what does it matter anyway if the evidence is valid?
And how does one manage to accout/correct for child care since a significant portion of the female population leaves the work force to have babies(something only they can do)?
By adjusting your study about pay disparity for "comparable experience". In other, a woman who has 15 years in IT over 20 years gets put into the 15 year bucket, not the 20 year bucket. It's a bit more sophisticated than that, but I think the idea is clear.
My argument has centuries of history and decades of studies behind it. Yours has a desperate attempt to justify what you see around you, which is something that nobody disputes, that women are a tiny minority in IT.
My argument is consistent with observed fact. It's a hypothesis, one that could theoretically be born out by doing a poll and asking to what degree people were interested and involved with technology from an early age.
In other words, anecdata.
Yours is based on the premise that men and women must be equal at everything, ergo any disparity must be because of "sexism".
That is not my premise. Men and women are different in many ways that directly impact their participation in particular professions. My premise is that we have a demonstrated history of sexism, mound upon mound of research backing up that conclusion, and that what's occurring in IT is almost exactly what we've seen elsewhere, decades ago.
So we're down to the explicitly circular argument: Men are better nerds. How do you know this? They're paid more. Why are they paid more? Because they're better nerds.
You know more competent males than competent females in IT because females are radically under-represented in IT. Seriously, you consider yourself a geek with such weak-sauce logic skills?
Many of today's generation of nerds were tinkering with technology on a real level soon after they were walking.
You have many quaint stereotypes.