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Interested in what’s hot (according to the TIOBE Index) in Programming Languages?

Check out TIOBE Programming Community Index for February 2007

From the TIOBE site

The TIOBE Programming Community index gives an indication of the popularity of programming languages. The index is updated once a month. The ratings are based on the world-wide availability of skilled engineers, courses and third party vendors. The popular search engines Google, MSN, and Yahoo! are used to calculate the ratings. Observe that the TIOBE index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written.

Originally found while cruzing Oreilly’s “PHP vs. Ruby on Rails. An evolutionary story of a Web Developer and his tools.“.

I got caught up in the moment over at Oreilly while commenting on How does a programming language stagnate?

I admit, it turned into a bit more of a rant than a comment.

But I guess that’s because I like the line of thinking in Chromatics article.

Here it is in it’s full glory !

I still use Perl for my sites (brooders.net, neoscholar.net), as well as tidbits of code, prototyping (even if the app will end up being in Java) and a whole host of things.

My work bought me Komodo from Activestate so I could do my Perl and Ruby coding when needed. I agree that more of the focus now is on modules like CGI::Application, Catalyst etc etc and not so much in the language itself. Yes .. there is a big gap between 5 and 6, but perl 5 is still useful.

I am also a little embaressed to admit it, but I probably still largely have a coding style like it’s perl 5.005_003. I first learnt Perl 4 at university, then upgraded from 5.001 to 5.005_003 in my first job. Perl 5.6 came and I didn’t change that much, even with Perl 5.8 .. same thing.

Perl still fills a gap. If need to grok a log file, do some web scanning (WWW::Mechanize is cool) or prototype something, Perl still helps me out. I do like Ruby as well, and Agree the whole Rails thing has made web dev easy in that environment compared to CGI::Application with Class::DBI, but you know what? I still maintain an Perl Web App I wrote 6 years ago .. with a homegrown templating system, and it still works.

I think the whole “perl is dying” thing comes from people seeing other languages and frameworks in the limelight. I think one of Rails biggest successes was a build a web application in 15 minutes tutorial, and watch the video if you can’t be bothered doing it .. and it looked pretty. C still has its place in microprocessor programming and OS level stuff. Perl also has it’s place as well as PHP. The whole Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (which Ruby language creator Matz talks about as well) talks about language influencing thought, and perhaps our thoughts influence the programming language we want to “think” in.

I think the language grows through the modules, and it’s still growing. Like you mentioned in the comments, CPANs modules for Perl5 are a huge strength for the language.

I guess even in the real word from a english language point of view, new ideas and products generate new parts of language. Think back 10 years .. would you have said “google it”?

Language evolves and extends .. not everyone uses every part, and not everybody uses the new parts as quick as others. I am sure my Grandmother wouldn’t know what Google is. Most professions I know (and companies) generate their own acronyms, names of processes etc that have meaning in that context. Programming languages are extended in their specific uses just like spoken/written human languages are.

Having been a perl coder on and off for nine years, I thought I’d take a look at Damian Conway’s Perl Best Practices.

Overall .. I like it.

I pick it up, read something, put it down.
Then pick it up again another day.

I am a little mixed in my opinion about all of his best practices, but that’s because I am used to quite a few habits (probably bad). His best practice for creating objects is still mucking with my head. The old syntax of return bless {}; is just too ingrained and allows some easier hacks modifications.

Things I like:

• Documentation and POD pointers - easy ideas
• Labels in loops, so you can say “next PERSON”
• General explanation of normal things (ordering arrays, sorting, modules) etc
• Well written and informative

Alan Perlis says that

“A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing”

However, in this case, this book affects the way I think about programming (in perl), so I think the book is worth reading.

Even though some people say that perl is an ancient dying language, I still use it to do a few jobs. I still think that languages like Perl can be used effectively today. It all depends on what you’re used to.

These habits explain how to break old ugly habits, and create some cleaner code that is easier to maintain.

Rating: 8/10

A couple of weeks back I got the chance to fill out the Abebooks legal agreement and integrate it into NeoScholar.

Their API, while a slightly different response format to parse allows for cool things like currency setting, which is useful for people like me who are NOT in the USA, which most seem to assume.

I am not sure of the final integration implementation, I only link through to one book at the moment. Abebooks.com has a variable shipping cost depending on where you are shipping to. Amazon and Alibris make things easier by forcing a fixed shipping cost onto booksellers. I have seen through Abebooks prices from $6 USD to $13 USD to ship to Australia. A big difference in determining the best price for a book.

Comparing the integration to Alibris into NeoScholar , there wasn’t a lot of difference in the effort. However, I don’t think there is a way to tell if a book is new or not with Abebooks. Alibris has two different search API’s, one for new and another for used.

All in all to get Abebooks working within a Perl module took a few hours. Not too bad …