So 2014 has arrived and Perl is a dead language… still.
It's been dead for maybe a decade now, despite it celebrating its 25th birthday recently. As I drive to my dayjob each day where I get paid to wrote Perl code for one of the UKs leading websites I tip my hat to the dead language that keeps the bailiff from the door.
As all the other Perl Bloggers have already said. Perl is not dead; it's just not trendy. Perl was the original web language. It has lost this celebrity status. Yet, Perl is still behind many of the top websites and remains one of the most flexible and productive languages on the web… and yes I am completely biased.
For the past 3-4 years I have been back writing Perl day to day; and I am still struck by the sensation from the first few weeks"back in Perl" after some time in PHPland and elsewhere.
It was a pleasure coming back to Perl. Literally a pleasure.
Perl is a language first; a programming language second. It writes like a real language. A bit like English it can be written this way or that way and achieve the same end.
If you like a postfix IF statement, Perl is ready for it. If you hate indentation; Perl can do it! Want concise near magical code, Perl is the language for it. Want expansive expressive code, Perl can do it!
I have written in the last year or two some NodeJS and after adjusting to the whole non-blocking, assymetrical style I wrote some useable code. But for me it's harder work that Perl.
One of the strength of the web's new poster child (NodeJS) is NPM. NPM is the NodeJS equivalent of CPAN. Both allow you to do wonderful things with a simple install of a module from the community.
In 2013 I have layed the foundations to start writing better Perl (and better code in general). I have been exploring the higher order concepts and finding my way around dependency injection, service classes and the dreaded Perl Secrets (it's a cpan module).
The previous few years had really expanded my enterprise development and specifically Agile and Scrum in a large corporate setting. My team had spent a lot of time and energy on agile methods, team working, test driven development and continuous development. 2014 really looks to be a year where my Perl improves and hopefully the skills I pinked up elsewhere help me apply the knowledge I am gaining this year.
My goals for the first quarter of the year are:
1. To finally upload a CPAN and
2. To add a Perl example to at least one web API for a webservice.
3. Do at least one "side project" with Dancer
Having said that; I shall try keep a toe in the NodeJS camp as part of me wants to stay on something "sexy". And of course part of me loves the ideas of NodeJS. Those being that by using the V8 engine the language benefits from all the competition to make web browsers faster and faster. I also love the idea that one language provides serverside and clientside.
Anyway… my final goal this year is blog regularly. I used to be so regular but faded. This year I have resurrected my spreadsheet and shall be using it to cycle me through my various sites and help me blog regularly.
So folks, stay tuned and say hello.
Lance.
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