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by geekwerks 4133 days ago
Death by a thousand cuts...PHP cut it off at the knees because it was trivialy easy to do web apps on a shared host; Perl hosting was far harder. Ruby came on the scene, and stepped in as a spiritual successor to Perl. Perl 6's infinite development cycle sapped the life out of the community. All of which led to fewer modules being added to, or updated on, CPAN. Fewer fresh modules drove more use to other languages that did have the fresh modules

I.e. a really nasty downward spiral that leaves perl occupying the same space as COBOL and FORTAN - a language used in massive legacy systems, but rarely used in new systems unless implemented by ancient wizards.

One the upside, pretty soon Perl wizards will be able to charge the same rates as COBOL & FORTRAN wizards...

1 comments

> All of which led to fewer modules being added to, or updated on, CPAN.

That's a compelling story. Lots of folk believe it, including, it seems, you. But have you checked your sources and data? For those interested in data and irony, watch about 2 minutes of either or both of these from last summer:

The slashdot story ("Always check your sources"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHy5h6ZRL6M#t=4m

CPAN data: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHy5h6ZRL6M#t=7m

> Perl 6's infinite development cycle sapped the life out of the community.

Again, lots of folk believe this story. For another dollop of irony the leading current P6 attacker was once the leading P6 booster around 2010. When he was pro P6 he didn't accept suggestions that it was slower than dog slow. (It was.) Now he's anti P6 he doesn't appear to be accepting that it's been speeding up every month and is due for official launch within a year. (It is.)

P6 is now flying under the radar but stories like this are around if you look for them, like this from a day or two ago here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9089259

I would caution against bringing chromatic up in any context including Perl 6. That particular period of history is complex enough with enough blame to go around that I doubt any gain you hope to get by bringing it up will work as you expect. Best to respect his wishes and leave him out.
For another dollop of irony the leading current P6 attacker was once the leading P6 booster around 2010. When he was pro P6 he didn't accept suggestions that it was slower than dog slow. (It was.) Now he's anti P6 he doesn't appear to be accepting that it's been speeding up every month and is due for official launch within a year. (It is.)

I've asked you multiple times in multiple places not to speak for me. Your assertions here are nonsense.

Please cease and desist.