Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!emory!ra!Ra.MsState.Edu!fwp1 From: fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl Subject: Re: COPS in perl? Message-ID: Date: 9 Jan 91 17:02:27 GMT References: <9920@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> <26411:Jan900:15:5991@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> Sender: usenet@ra.MsState.Edu Organization: Computing Center, Mississippi State University Lines: 66 Nntp-Posting-Host: jester.cc.msstate.edu In-reply-to: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu's message of 9 Jan 91 00:15:59 GMT In article <26411:Jan900:15:5991@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes: Ya know, wouldn't it be neat if people could use comp.lang.c as comp.prog.help-wanted.c? I've got lots of great programming projects (in C, of course) that I want to farm out to people, and I think a language newsgroup is the right place to advertise. Better yet: I've got an improved PD clone of ``man'' written in C. I think I'll post it to comp.lang.c, because anyone who cares about the C language must care about any program written in C. I agree that the flavor of comp.lang.perl is different from other comp.lang groups. But I think there are important differences to perl (at this point in time) that make those differences necessary. 1) Almost all of the users of comp.lang.{c,lisp,pascal} already know the language under discussion fairly well. The perl group (in my subjective opinion) seems to have a larger percentage of people who don't know the language or are very new to it. Because of this I think a higher rate of sample programs is appropriate here where it wouldn't be in another group. As the percentage of experienced perl programmers increases I expect the basic stuff to become less common. Also, I gather that several readers aren't really sure they want anything to do with perl. They've heard of the language and subscribed to learn more about it (in the sense of "what can it do for me" rather than "how can I write programs in it"). For these people a demonstration that perl can be used to write an enhanced man package is of interest (I was in this category when I first subscribed). C doesn't have nearly as much questioning of its basic usefulness. 2) Other languages usually have a variety of books to which users can go for simple examples and explanations. There is no such reference for perl beyond the man pages (well...there is a book now but practically speaking nobody has access to it yet). A great many of the otherwise trivial code posted here illustrates The Perl Way (doing s search this way is more efficient than doing it that way). Such things are found in books for other languages. 3) Most of the C programmers on the net probably don't read comp.lang.c (it is too high volume for the casual reader). And most of the readers of the *.sources.wanted groups (an ordinarily more appropriate place for programmers wanted requests) probably do know C. But most probably don't (yet) know perl and most of the perl programmers on the net probably do read comp.lang.perl at this point. This means that posting a request for C programmers in comp.lang.c is inefficient and misses much of its potential audience. But a posting for perl programmers in this group is a very efficient choice. It gets most of the people he wants to reach and minimizes the number of people who don't know perl and have to skip on over the posting. So I think you need to allow for a different flavor in this group because of the (relative) newness of the language under discussion and the lack of outside references. As perl becomes more popular and ubiquitous and as The Book gets out and accessible I expect that the flavor of the group will change somewhat...but right now its traffic is just about perfect for the language as it is today. FWP -- -- Frank Peters Internet: fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu Bitnet: FWP1@MsState Phone: (601)325-2942 FAX: (601)325-8921