Better Perl

[virtualsue]

Paul Makepeace wrote:
> On 4/7/08, David Cantrell <david at cantrell.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Any perl businesses with multi-<s>billion</s> million, even, dollar valuations?
>>  >
>>  > Morgan Stanley doesn't count :-)
>>
>>
>> Why doesn't it count?  It's a business that uses perl.  Here's a few
>>  other perl-using businesses:
>>
>>  * Amazon
>>  * the Catholic church
>>  * Microsoft
> 
> There's a difference between 'business relies on X' and 'business uses
> X'. Sure MS use Perl, so do Google, and Amazon. Do either company
> _remotely_ rely on it? No. (I'd be curious to hear from people working
> in finance who use other languages what perl's role in the finance
> world actually is. There seems to generally be a lot of overstatement
> of perl's use in certain businesses in this thread.)

I work for a billion dollar company which relies on Perl. It is used all over the shop -- 
infrastructure, engineering, testing, HR, marketing, sales, etc., and it is included in some of the 
products we sell. It's part of standard infrastructure of every server that IT and engineering sets 
up. IOS probably can't build without it.  It's just everywhere.

> 
> IIRC the thread was about making a better perl, which produced the
> sentiment that "Perl is fine, thankyouverymuch" and yet here we are
> with perl not really being all that critical to very many people's
> businesses. And for the relative few that are, they're hardly shining
> examples of Wikipedia/Facebook/etc stature. Sure, perl's a useful
> tool, but it's not critical.

Cisco is bigger, and Perl is critical to the company. But - so?  BFD.


> 
> ...
> 
> Insisting that perl is core to businesses isn't necessarily in
> dispute, it just doesn't move us any closer to a better, more
> compelling perl. Not seeing any particular motivation to move beyond
> the status quo is the signal of a culture putting itself into
> maintenance mode.
> 

Who said nobody wanted to move beyond the status quo?  Other than you, of course. I'm struggling to 
see the point of this discussion.