[Catalyst] Gentlemen, a call to arms!

[Dami Laurent (PJ)]

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : catalyst-bounces at lists.rawmode.org 
> [mailto:catalyst-bounces at lists.rawmode.org] De la part de 
> John Napiorkowski
> Envoyé : mercredi, 11. octobre 2006 22:15
> À : The elegant MVC web framework
> Objet : Re: [Catalyst] Gentlemen, a call to arms!
> 
> -- Matt S Trout <dbix-class at trout.me.uk> wrote:
> 
> > http://www.plat-forms.org/faq.htm
> > 
> > They're having a platform war. We're forever left out of 
> the ruby vs. 
> > python games, the "enterprise" people ignore us (though really, I'm 
> > not sure I mind that :) but ...
> > 
> > "We have been considering Perl as one of the platforms to 
> be admitted 
> > to the contest. So far, we have decided against it because 
> we believe 
> > that too few professionals use it professionally for us to 
> hope to get 
> > enough requests for admittance for the Perl platform.
> > 
> > If you are a team that would like to participate and would 
> like to use 
> > Perl, please contact prechelt at inf.fu-berlin.de (Lutz Prechelt)."
> > 
> > This is a bit of a shotgun e-mail. Several list admins are probably 
> > going to attempt to track me down and shoot me in the head. I don't 
> > care.
> > 
> > Our community has repeatedly failed to market it's way out 
> of a paper 
> > bag, I've even helped contribute to this with my eminently 
> forgettable 
> > London Web Frameworks Night talk. But this is about 
> producing working 
> > code. *That* we know we can do.
> > 
> > Stand up and be counted. It's gotta be good for a laugh if nothing 
> > else.
> 
> From reading that webpage I think they are looking more for 
> requests from teams that would actually be willing to go to 
> Germany on the competition date.  I'm not sure if we all just 
> wrote, "Hey I'm an IT consultant using Perl/Catalyst or 
> Perl/FrameworkOfChoice and think you are making a big mistake 
> not putting Perl on your list." if that would sway them.
> 
> They are betting no one will put up the cash to sponsor a 
> Perl team.  And they are looking for several teams for each 
> platform, enough to make a contest between developers in a 
> platform meaningful.
> 
> The rules specify that they won't be comparing platforms, so 
> their won't be any, "Perl versus ROR verus J2EE" going on.  
> So that's why they want enough people for a given platform to show up.
> 
> Now if we could identify some awesome Catalyst developers who 
> could are willing and available to go to the contest and then 
> raise money to send them I think it could raise their 
> attention.  We have to decide if this particular contest 
> represents a good investment of our time and cash.  Perhaps 
> some of the local or reasonable local Perl Mongers could send 
> some teams?  It would show the strength of the community.
> 
> Anyone know more about the actual status and recognition of 
> this contest?  Would having perl programmers at it 
> meaningfully add to our mindshare in the enterprise?
> 
> --john
> 

Hi all,

I think this contest is a very good opportunity for Perl and Catalyst to get more recognition. About the status of this contest, I guess nobody knows much more than what is on the website, but I can imagine that the final report will have quite a broad audience. The previous paper by Lutz Prechelt (An empirical comparison of seven programming languages) is cited quite often, as it is one of the very few sources for a fully objective comparison of several languages, ignoring the hype and religious wars.

As John wrote, the best way to convince the organisers to change their mind is if they get several requests from Perl teams to participate in the contest. The call for participation says "Preferably, all three participants should come from the same organization". So, if your organisation is using Perl/Catalyst  -- I hope there are more than a few nowadays -- , then please write to the contest organizers saying that you would like a Perl track to be opened. Also, we should probably alert the Jifty, Maypole, CGI::Application, etc. communities to join that lobbying effort.

Laurent Dami.