Becoming an Iron Man

Originally published in June 2010 on my previous blog, in both English and French. The Iron Man challenge is long over, but the diagnosis about a community’s duty to market its own language has aged well.

I came across a comic that illustrates well, to my mind, the issue with Perl’s popularity: XKCD: The secret of the Universe

Wherever the place I’ve worked, Perl was present to one degree or another, often in a crucial place, without its use being advertised or even known. I’ve long believed, that it was the reason why Perl wasn’t as popular as it could be, despite its use.

But in fact, no:

It’s just that the Perl community sucks at marketing!

It’s the community duty to promote the language, to bust the myths, to give visibility to the language, for we can see one day more jobs and more formations mentioning explicitly the language.

That’s why initiatives around Enlightened Perl must be supported. The Iron Man project especially: To post regularly about Perl to give it visibility.

(and by the way to achieve the honorific Iron Man status without running 42km, swimming 5km and riding 180km on a bike ;-) )

Then, here it is, by this post I officially join the contest.

Because Perl is not dead!

Because Perl is not (necessarily) unreadable!

Because Laziness is only a virtue when you code!

and…

“Because I’m worth it” ;-)