Talk:Perl/Archive 6

message: This page has been protected.  I'm starting another mediation page Talk:Perl/Mediation/GroundRules
*Page protection has now been removed. Portions of the dispute have now gone before ArbCom (see WP:RFAR#Pudgenet). I will continue to monitor this article. If I see signs of an edit war erupting again, I will take action to halt the war. --Durin 14:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  mediation with a stick 

message: Perl#Overview is currently organized like
* 1.1 Design
* 1.2 Features
* 1.3 Applications
* 1.4 Implementation
* 1.5 Availability
I'd like to change it to
* 1.1 Features
* 1.2 Applications
* 1.3 Implementation
* 1.4 Availability
* 1.5 Design
It's true that Design logically comes before Features, but people reading an encyclopeida article aren't usually looking for a derivation from first principles. They want to know what this thing is and what is it good for. Leading with Features and Applications tells them that. In fact, I think there is even a case for moving Design down to the Origins section, like
* 5.1 History
* 5.2 Design
* 5.3 Name
* 5.4 The camel symbol
* 5.5 Related links
Swmcd 18:45, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Overview section 

message: I believe these are not acceptable references to back up the inclusion of proposed material.
I am also not that interested in measures of Perl's popularity as criticisms; I am more interested in technical aspects.  Ideogram 02:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The TIOBE data is not raw data, which is one of the problems. We can't verify it because we can never know if we get the same answer from the search engines. It's been cooked through their formula to end up with a percentage, thereby losing much of the original meaning. They can't publish the original data because it would show the popularity of most languages is continually increasing (since it is not a zero sum system). I don't think anyone, including Barry, was doing original research in Wikipedia. He merely reported the conclusions of TIOBE. Those conclusions, however, are not reliable or verifiable, and they do not come from a reputable source. Scarpia 11:18, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I have no idea what point there would be to that.  It is, literally, impossible for the TIOBE data to have anything meaningful to say about "popularity," for the reasons I've already enumerated in detail elsewhere.  It seems the only reason to include it is merely to appease a vocal editor, not because it is actually a reasonable link to include. Pudge 04:56, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TIOBE data and IRC chat 

message: Name "Perl" should be "Perl_programming_language" as stated in Wikipedia:Naming Conventions, especially since a disambig page exists.
-- scott
:Here's a page just on that.
Languages which share their names with some other thing should be suffixed with "language" in the case of natural languages or "programming language" in the case of programming languages. If the language's name is unique, there is no need for any suffix.
:That's a good guideline for deciding which subject to elongate for differentiation, but in this case, all the other Perl articles are titled something other than Perl, so we don't have that problem. I think the popularity of the Perl articles should also be considered. If one is far more popular, maybe it should get the un-suffixed name. -Barry- 16:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming conventions 

message: Upon reading the part of the article on the speed of Perl, I believe it can give the wrong impression. For example on a Perl web site I am familiar with, the pages load quite quickly (in 1-2 seconds), whereas a corresponding client-server implementation using a commercial   language  responds in half-minutes (30 seconds). I have seen this type of response for two or three non-perl sites.  Somebody is not telling all the story. Customers are actually putting up with this. Developers who do not know Perl better are actually startled at the speed of the Perl site.   But if this point belongs on the Wikia site or elsewhere, then please tell me so.  --Ancheta Wis 10:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Without a verifiable source, we cannot simply change this.  On top of this, most sources on performance have some sort of bias.  I think what we have is fine. Steve p 12:12, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Unfortunately, this information would violate WP:NOR. There are many, many more problems with those results fail to take into account including, but not limited to:  not showing bytes/second, hardware and network performance differences, lack of verifiable results, and even the speed of light.  Like HighInBC said, "There are simply too many variables."  Steve p 03:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comparative Performance

message: Since Yahoo runs Perl, we can see that even though Perl is interpreted, the site runs faster than MSN or Microsoft. And since Perl is interpreted, Perl runs slower than Google's site. From Alexa:
#Google is faster than 82% of the rest of the Net, avg load times 0.9sec
#Yahoo is slower than 53% of the rest of the Net, avg load times 2.2sec
#MSN is slower than 72% of the rest of the Net, avg  load times 3.4 sec
#Microsoft is slower than 82% of the rest of the Net, avg  load times 4.3 sec 
--Ancheta Wis 00:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, this information would violate WP:NOR. There are many, many more problems with those results fail to take into account including, but not limited to:  not showing bytes/second, hardware and network performance differences, lack of verifiable results, and even the speed of light.  Like HighInBC said, "There are simply too many variables."  Steve p 03:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: I got some numbers right here

message: I was reading this and it does not seem to mention that text following the # sign will be ignored as a comment. I added this line to text to the section about the shebang:
 Because the shebang starts with the # sign, the line is treated as a comment and ignored by the perl interpreter.
However I think a line somewhere noting this would be helpful as comments are being used in bare bones examples. Not sure where it should go though... thoughts, suggestions? HighInBC 20:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a section on comments at the beggining. It may need to be reworded, perhaps the information does not need it's own section but can be incoorperated into the hello world section. This is such a nice article I feel that I have sort of slapped a cheap patch on it. HighInBC 20:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How's this:
===Example Program===
In Perl, the canonical "Hello world" program is:
 #!/usr/bin/perl
 print "Hello, world!\n";    # '\n' is a 'newline'
The first line is the shebang, which tells the operating system where to find the Perl interpreter. The second line prints the string Hello, world! and a newline. A comment  '\n' is a 'newline'  follows. 
====# sign is Comment symbol====
The # sign on the second line is a 'comment symbol', which allows the perl interpreter to ignore everything after the # sign, up to the end of the line of code.
--Ancheta Wis 03:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  # This is a comment 

message: In Perl, the canonical "Hello world" program is:
 #!/usr/bin/perl
 print "Hello, world!\n";    # '\n' is a 'newline'
The first line is the shebang, which tells the operating system where to find the Perl interpreter. The second line prints the string Hello, world! and a newline. A comment  '\n' is a 'newline'  follows. 
====# sign is Comment symbol====
The # sign on the second line is a 'comment symbol', which allows the perl interpreter to ignore everything after the # sign, up to the end of the line of code.
--Ancheta Wis 03:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Example Program

message: The # sign on the second line is a 'comment symbol', which allows the perl interpreter to ignore everything after the # sign, up to the end of the line of code.
--Ancheta Wis 03:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ''#'' sign is Comment symbol

message: Hello User:Imroy and other Perl Wikipedians,
I'm working as fast as I can, so could you please take another honest look at what I'm trying to do for the global Perl community in Wikia:Perl, and suggest to me what I need to do to get you folks more fully involved in this mutual effort.  I was really counting on you to step in, and I honestly can't implement this good thing without your great expertise and full participation.  Thanks. --Ermeyers 01:01, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Perl Wiki in Wikia, plea 2 

message: Talk:wikiCalc points to some Perl code by Dan Bricklin, the visionary behind Visicalc, which just happens to have kicked off a few multi-billion-dollar industries. Some people including Bricklin have considered a new kind of application using wikis and spreadsheets. They envision wikis to play a role in the development of this Perl program, of which the Beta version is GPL.
At the very least, this code could be discussed, in wiki-style, on a suitable site; one side-effect might be that another generation of programmers could be inspired to pick up the Perl language. --Ancheta Wis 16:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello User:Ancheta Wis, As you can probably tell from what I've already written in here about The Perl Wiki in Wikia, I'm a Perl advocate who is also extremely interested in finding new ways to bring new people into the global Perl Wiki community. The Wikia:Perl site is a new, free and open Perl home, not a Wikimedia limited-content location, so I'd like to suggest to you and all of the other Perl Wikipedians here that you folks help me do exactly what you're talking about here, by bringing these types of things over to Wikia:Perl to discuss them, express your opinions and experiment with these interesting new ideas.  The Wikia:Perl site will be an excellent staging ground for the Perl Wiki experts to try new things, discuss things and prepare articles fully before neutralizing the content for the Wikimedia namespaces, such as Wikipedia.  Wikis cannot develop correctly without the right people being involved.  Don't you agree?  I'd love to discuss this with you and others more completely, and I'd love to have you and others participate in Wikia:Perl.  I'm a Systems Engineer not a Wiki expert, so I need some good Perl Wiki people like you.  Welcome Home to Wikia:Perl, to you, your personal opinions and your interesting new ideas. --Wikia:Perl:User:Ermeyers Ermeyers 21:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A GPL Perl application