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Perl Programming

The Perl Journal On The Ropes 164

Posted by pudge from the help-me-obi-wan-perl-programmer dept.
rochlin writes "Looks like The Perl Journal might not make it up for air after all. This blurb is on their website. 'Time is running short and we need your help if The Perl Journal is to get another chance at being the real deal. As of a couple of minutes ago, we only have 881 subscriptions and the deadline is fast approaching. Please subscribe now. It only costs 3 cents per day to get the best Perl coverage anywhere.'" They need 3,000 subscribers to move forward.
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The Perl Journal On The Ropes More

The Perl Journal On The Ropes

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  • 3 cents per day? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Prince_Ali ( 614163 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:15AM (#4402903) Journal
    That is pretty cheap, but I don't need 30 3 cent charges on my credit card every month.

  • Just Die Already (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:16AM (#4402909)
    Sorry for the doom and gloom, but Perl.com has pretty much nailed down the business of keeping Perl users up to date with news and events. There doesn't appear to be a need for the Perl Journal anymore, and no one is going to subscribe with real cash after the debacles of the past couple of years.

    • Re:Just Die Already (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Golias ( 176380 )
      Not to mention perl.org and a dozen other free sites which provide more perl info than any one person is likely to get around to reading. Why would I spend a dime on a journal of Stuff I Can Read Elsewhere For Free?

      In fact, the massive amount of free documentation and information is one of the factors that drew a lot of people to Perl in the first place. You too can be YAPH without ever buying a single publication. (Okay, maybe the Camel Book is a nice jump-start, but it's amazing how much you can accomplish with just that and web resources.)

      • I think that goes for most things these days
        especially computer related stuff.

        You can get all the scoop on apache, mysql,
        even advanced network design with vpns and ipsec
        all from google searches. Just a few years ago,
        this sort of info would only be available through
        textbooks, vendor manual, and trade publications.
    • I subscribed to almost all of the issues of the Perl Journal. While it is true that up to date news about Perl can be found on Perl.com, this is not necessarily the market that TPJ was addressing.

      The value of TPJ was that you could read it offline (even with other people in a room with no computers present!) There were many interesting and detailed articles about Perl, and many serendipitous discoveries to be made. My reaction to many of these was included:-

      - That's a cool thing to do in Perl - That makes me feel better about pushing it to my employer.

      - That's an interesting way to write something in Perl, maybe I'll try that.

      - That's an interesting sounding new module, I could use that in my job for....

      - Is that really a Perl program? (for the terminally obfuscated).

      I like having a dead tree-thing around to read in the bath and put on my bookhelves. YMMV.


  • It's not the fact that they stopped publishing it, but how they treated the subscribers.

    Anyone else get fscked out of a year or two of BYTE?

    For more on the story, click here [halfhill.com]

    • Re:I've been at odds with CMP ever since BYTE (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:19AM (#4402948)
      yea, right. Last time I paid for my Perl journal subscription, they got sold to earthweb, took my money and refused to send a magazine, refused to return calls, refused to return email. Why should I re-subscribe to a magazine thats till owes me a years subscription?
      • Same here. When CMP bought BYTE, they killed it off (in the paper form), while owing me about a year's subscription. They then had the audacity to offer a year of Windows Magazine instead. I declined (I don't use that software). They owe me a whole year of BYTE, that was I think about $60. I would have subscribed to the Perl Journal, but NOT with CMP. They are not trustworthy.
    • Yeah, they offered me some subscription to some lame Windows magazine, I stuck their card in an envelope and wrote them a letter demanding a refund instead.

      I'm still waiting, CMP, if you are reading this. :)

      Although, BYTE had been degenerating into a Java and buzzword circle jerk, with few interesting articles.
    • They killed BYTE magazine and ran off with the subscription monies.
      I'm not surprised they are having trouble now.
      And I'm not moved in the least.
      Sorry for the journalists, but your company stinks.
      Come on, Perl Journal, it is time to go away.

  • $12 a year (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LeapingGnomeArs ( 561240 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:17AM (#4402924)
    Hmm, $12 a year, same price as a subscription to Wired. Now I wonder, which will you get more info from that will actually help you in your job? (hint: the journal)
    • Not much of a comparison. Wired publishes their entire magazine online for free. Not sure what the reasoning is behind that move, but they're still alive for now anyways.
      • Good point, I'm not sure why Wired does that either. I know a couple of years ago, they did not publish the magazine articles on the web until it had been on the newstands for a few weeks, not sure if that is still the case.
        • Which made a subscription worth about zero, as I usually didn't get the issue in the mail until a weak or more after it had hit the newsstands. Don't know if that was happening to anyone else, but I always felt that was a bit of a ripoff.

          Cheers.
          • Having the dead tree version gives you those collectible Absolut images on the back cover. Might be kind of cool to rip the back cover off each issue and frame them and hang them around the game room in a house. Or use it as wallpaper for the "man's bathroom".
    • Especially considering that in an issue of Wired, you have to flip through at least 75+ pages of ads before you even THINK about getting to an article which contains product placements...

    • Re:$12 a year (Score:5, Funny)

      by e2d2 ( 115622 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:35AM (#4403601)
      Hmm, $12 a year, same price as a subscription to Wired. Now I wonder, which will you get more info from that will actually help you in your job? (hint: the journal)

      Yeah, But which one can you KILL a man with because of all the advertisements? (hint:wired)

    • O Yea? But which one faithfully has coverage of Burning Man?

  • Perl Monks! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mithrander ( 589462 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:18AM (#4402930)
    Who needs Perl Journal when there's Perl Monks [perlmonks.org]? Great resource!

    • Get Serious (Score:2, Informative)

      by qurob ( 543434 )

      Who needs the New York Times when there's www.newyorktimes.com? Who needs USA Today when there's, you guessed it, www.usatoday.com?

      Yes, magazines have probably been but throught market/financial HELL since the web came out, because you can't beat the speed of internet publications as opposed to a paper magazine which usually has a 3 month 'delay'.

      You usually get a much higher quality of writing in a traditional magazine, not to mention you can't take a web site from the shitter, to the couch, out on the porch, on the bus, on the shitter at work, in the drive through at mcdonalds....
      • not to mention you can't take a web site from the shitter, to the couch, out on the porch, on the bus, on the shitter at work, in the drive through at mcdonalds....

        You can, with a wireless PDA. OK, Maybe not on the bus or to the drive through, but it's good enough to haul around the house.
      • Who needs USA Today when there's, you guessed it, www.usatoday.com?

        Now that you mention it, who needs either one of them?

  • I'm still waiting on one unfulfilled subscription (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CresentCityRon ( 2570 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:19AM (#4402940)
    I really enjoyed the orginial rag. I have all the issues and they are fun to flip through even today.

    I have a problem with my original subscription just vanishing in the middle like it did. Normally you would get some crap alternate magazine when your magazine hits the dirt. But instead I get the offer of yet another subscription that could fizz out.

    I think I'll wait and buy the back issues. At least I know they'exist.
    • I'm thinking you didn't pursue your money very far then. The original subscriptions were honored by the transition to TPJ as a section of SysAdmin. Quite honestly, the transition sucked for a number of reasons, and that's why the partnership ended up failing. But the original subscriptions were honored for anyone Jon could track down (which basically means anyone who bothered to email him asking what the deal was).

  • How could it work? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ageitgey ( 216346 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:23AM (#4402967) Homepage
    From the website:

    Well, sort of. We need your help. TPJ is totally reader supported. To provide TPJ to you, we need 3,000 subscribers. Bean counters and suits being what they are, our bosses won't let us publish the e-zine if we don't have enough subscribers. It's as simple as that.

    3,000 readers * $12.00 subscription = $36,000 yearly income before taxes and bandwidth costs.

    How could they survive on that? You couldn't even pay one decent perl programmer to write articles. Who is paying all the "bean counters and suits"?
    • In a word: Advertising.

      Most magazine subscriptions costs just barely, if at all, cover the mailing costs. With an online magazine like this one, fixed costs are a little different, but I am sure they are still planning to rely on advertising to plug the money gap.

      Hell, I have a couple "newstand" magazines which the publishers send to me for free to get the ads in front of me, since I fit a valued advertising demographic for them. Think about PCWeek and stuff (are they still around?) I used to get a mailbox full of free computer trade rags each week pro-bono.

      -Pete
      • How does this jibe with the claim that "TPJ is totally reader supported?" I don't read the mag, so I don't know if it has advertising, but they either don't, or they are lying when they say they are totally reader supported.

        • It is (Score:2, Funny)

          by qurob ( 543434 )

          Maybe the advertisers are forced to read it.

          So technically, it IS reader-supported.

      • The rate that a magazine can charge for advertising is directly dependent on the number of subscribers they have - more subscribers, higher ad rates. Probably with under 1000 subscribers they can't charge a high enough ad rate to sustain themselves.

        This is why you see airline frequent flier miles can be used for magazine subscriptions. The magazines really want to give away subscriptions to get that subscriber number up, but advertisers insist that the subscribers be 'qualified subscribers' - which is anyone who pays for a subscription, or anyone who meets some other semi-arbitrary standard - like 'a frequent flier with 1000 miles to blow', 'a member of XYZ professional association', etc.
    • 3,000 readers * $12.00 subscription = $36,000 yearly income before taxes and bandwidth costs.
      Bandwidth costs = $100/mo (RackShack.net) * 12 = $1,200
      $36,000 - $1,200 = $34,400

      $34,400 * .75 (approx what is left after taxes) = $25,800

      That is more than enough for any unemployed Perl programmer :)

      It is better than working at McDonalds!!

      Oh, and the suits, they aren't real ... :)

    • Don't be so quick to show your rich tastes. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Inoshiro ( 71693 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:50AM (#4403708) Homepage
      If you were living in Canada, that'd be over $55,000.

      To put this in perspective, you can live a decent life in a nice house that you are paying off for $18,000 a year (yes, that includes internet access, food, utilities, etc).

      Even after taxes you still have 10-15 grand to just piss away! I know that some US centres are very expensive to live in (NYC, Boston), but is everywhere in the US so damned expensive that you can't live on less than an appreciable fraction of a million dollars?
      • Yes it is. I assume the $18,000 you mention is $18K CDN. This converts to about $11,300 US, which is $1.5k below the poverty line for a family of 3.

        Possibly the most expensive US center to live in is the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live. OK, technically I live outside the Bay Area, since I don't live in one of the counties that are generally recognized as comprising it, but I work in Silicon Valley. Even with the cheaper rent you get with a 1 hour commute, it's not easy going with a family of 4 and an income < $100k.

        • Are you a single parent? If not, (why) isn't the wife/husband working as well?

          From my point of view, I think you had a few too many dependants. I'm working right now such that I save 50% of what I earn to support myself when I go through university (the equivalent of 1 dependant). More than that would require a pay increase. If I had the pay increase you describe as being "a non-living wage," I could support 3 people -- assuming we all lived in Canada wher I live now.

          Your situation is different because you are living in a very expensive area. Perhaps you need to find alternate work in another part of the country where inflation is not so rampant, or find an employer which is willing to match your monetary needs. There is so much you can do to improve your situation.

          And don't say that reclocating is too damaging to children, because I've been to 27 non-post-secondary instutions in my life. Children will adapt to one move, especially if their home life will stabilize because of it.
          • No, I'm not a single parent. There are several reasons why my wife currently has no income. The only one of them that's any of your business is that it's far healthier for kids in general to have at least one parent home and there for them, and far more important to their well-being than material wealth. I know that's terribly politically incorrect. Many people prefer to believe nowadays that we can just warehouse our kids in some impersonal facility and expect them to be just as secure and as happy as if they were being raised by someone who loves them. That's nonsense, and I think the kind of insecure, materially oriented, overweight brats that are all too common these days are a direct consequence of that. It also goes a long way towards explaining your own equating of material abundance with stability. We're in no danger of losing the roof over our heads or of starving. I do drive a Hyundai rather than a BMW, but I don't consider that to be such a great hardship that I need to do whatever it takes to acquire one. And I don't see how it would benefit my kids.

            I used "parent" rather than "mother" up there for a reason. Don't go trying to slam me for advocating the oppression of women, or whatever phrase for the sentiment happens to spring to your mind. I know several families where the father is the stay-at-home parent. It works just fine.

            I don't know why you put "non-living wage" in quotes, because I didn't use those words. I said "poverty line", and I used the figure from the US government for the year 2000. It's applied nationwide, as little sense as that may make. So it doesn't matter if you're living in Los Altos Hills, California or Podunk, Iowa, the government considers you to be in poverty if your annual household income is less than $13,861.

            Finally: You're an ass. Just who the hell are you to tell me how many kids I should be having? Or where I should be living? Or how I should direct my career? Or what should and should not be important to me? Grow up a little more, get some life experience, get your degree, take on some actual responsibility for one or two other human beings, and then, just maybe, you'll be qualified to tell someone else how they should be going about it. Even then it's damned rude.

            • I'm glad you're choosing parenting over purchasing your children. Doing more with less is something a lot of young people just don't understand; hopefully your young people will understand it.

              As for a Hyundai being a hardship... where does that come from? Of course you should live within your means. Maybe you've gone through some financial equivalent of velocitization living in silicon valley -- I don't look down on someone because they drive a practical vehicle (or a non-BMW). It's logical, after all! Needs and wants always have to be balanced. It's called living within one's means :)

              By your (US Federal) standards, I've only not been in poverty for about 6 months of my life, and am just now climbing back out from a pit in which I lived at half that amount (not the most fun, I must say).

              And as for your last paragraph: wake up. You were complaining about a situation which you can change through direct action on your part. I can see informing people about a social issue, or explaining a position, but whining about something you can change is a waste of your time and mine. If you can change it, you shouldn't be wasting your breath talking about how it's not changing on its own. Right? If you aren't happy in your situation, change it!

              Your entire post seems to make a bunch of assumptions about how I'm looking down on you because you're not a trillionaire, even if it's tangental to my reply.
              • What set me off was your presumption in telling me how to live my life. I wasn't complaining, I was answering your question about the cost of living in the US. If you were less presumptious but still wanted to engage in some discussion, you might have asked what I meant by "not easy" (which I freely admit I base on the local culture) rather than lecture me on how I've got too many kids.

                As for a Hyundai being a hardship... where does that come from?

                From sarcasm. You're the one who told me that if I lived someplace with a lower cost of living my children's "home life will stabilize" based on no other information than what I chose to give you. If you were reading with more care, you might have noticed I hinted strongly that there was much more to my particular story, all of which is highly OT for this discussion and none of your business anyway. You judge far too hastily.

                • Hinting at things, even strongly hinting at things, will never beat actually coming out and saying something. Especially online! Emoticons change the meaning of a sentence entirely! :)

                  "From my point of view, I think you had a few too many dependants." if you ignore the have/had problem (oops), seems straightforward to me. "From my point of view" as in "as I see it" as in how I would react in that situation. If I'd said, "I think you need to do this entirely different, CaptainCarrot" then I would be (presumably) telling you how to live you life. But maybe you always take suggestions as presumptions, because that's how you are. Another thing I can't tell online because I can't see your body posture.

                  In your reply, you seemed to be speaking from a bad position, saying that life was nothing but strife and pain (IE: "it's not easy going" and such repeated a few times). Based on that, I assumed you were having problems, and suggested a solution. After all, if there's no problem, why bring it up like that?

                  I'll chock it up to human nature. Everyone tends to exagerate, especially online. If you say you're not having problems, I have no other way (nor inclination) to verify it. I think I'll take your word for it :)

    • 3,000 readers * $12.00 subscription = $36,000.

      So is TPJ saying they can't scrape up a combination of internal money, investors and advertiser commitments to get an additional $36k ??

      If they're serious about ressurecting TPJ, they should commit to a year of 5000 subscribers (paid or not), include the previous TPJ subscribers gratis, free subscriptions to as many qualified users as they can reach, and try to regain a loyal user-base again, before getting all whiney about not having enough paid subscribers.

      They have to earn back some loyalty that they pissed away.
      • "So is TPJ saying they can't scrape up a combination of internal money, investors and advertiser commitments to get an additional $36k ??"

        No, they are saying they need 3000 paying subscribers to make things work. Ad rates are based on subscriptions. Giving them 36K wouldn't help, that's not the point.

  • maybe expand coverage to Ruby and Python (Score:4, Interesting)

    by raistlinthegreat ( 556858 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:26AM (#4402989)
    Python and Ruby are becoming more and more popular. especially Ruby has many fans who came
    from a Perl background.
    maybe "The Perl Journal" should be a "Ruby, Perl, Python" Journal.
    • To some extent, I'd agree with this, or at least expanding the idea of a magazine to cater to the cross-platform scripting language, which includes, but not limited to, perl, python, tcl, ruby, and so forth. All the major non-scripting programming languages have significant journal support, but typically these languages are limited to sys admin magazines (I've seen a lot of scripting basics appearing in tLinuxJ/LinuxMag; heck, wasn't TPJ part of SysOp mag at some point?). More so, nearly all of these languages work with HTTP/CGI, XML, and other newer technology, so there is certainly some commonality amoung them.

      Heck, add some sh/bash programming into that as well. Those aren't just for sysops anymore!

      I'd even include adding language toolkits like PHP that are still scripting languages but for a specific application (in this case, web delivery)

      Of course, I'm sure there are those that only want to read about perl, or only about python, etc. Of course, some magazines that proport to be just about a certain language typcially get a lot of sidetracks in them as well (for example, the C/C++ UJ often has an issue on Windows programming about once every 6 months, which gives no benefit if you aren't doing Windows programming). I'd argue that you provide columns on those and then give some good general columns (such as writing consistant UIs across platforms, securing scripts, using new techs & TLAs in these languages) and you'd have a pretty damn tight magazine. Call it "The Scripting Journal".

      • I'd like a perl only magazine - I used haunt the local comp bookstore everytime I knew a new TPJ was coming out. I like dead-tree publications, and I honestly don't understand the "why pay for something I can get free online" crowd for the whole list of usual reasons.

        But, I'm not signing up for TPJ this time around. Why?

        1. the way it suddenly vanished last time, to be replaced by SysAdmin subs. I've picked up a couple issues of SysAdmin, and it never had enough that was relevant to me.
        2. I respect everything Jon Orwant has done to keep TPJ alive, but the light descriptions I've heard of the new TPJ just doesn't sound like the publication it used to be.
        3. (much to my chagrin), I'm not doing much perl work lately, which means it would be in the strictly recreational category for me. If I had time for recreational programming these days, that would be great. I don't.

        Strangely enough, for these reasons (especially the last one), I probably would subscribe to "The Scripting Journal." It would have some perl in it it give me that warm fuzzy feeling, and enough other stuff that I do currently work with daily to allow me to justify the time. I enjoy scripting languages, so something like that would be a nice combination of work and play. I fear it's never to be, though, and that I'm stuck with online-only publications.

    • I don't think that this would be enough to "save" the Journal. Compared to Perl, the Python user base is pretty small, and Ruby's is tiny.

      The real question is, "Is it *worth* saving?". A lot of people have stated that you get better quality articles in it, and I agree, they are very good. But why *can't* these high quality articles be published directly on the web? Were the authors really paid such large amounts of money to produce this content that only a subscription model can sustain it?

  • Perhaps more sponsorship is the answer, such as.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by joshua404 ( 590829 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:27AM (#4403000)
    Change the publication's name to..

    Microsoft .NET Presents The Perl Journal

    no?

  • It's a problem of skiddish subs. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:27AM (#4403004) Homepage
    I know that I wont subscribe just to see my subscription fizzle out like last time. and i am sure there are many others out there who also are feeling the same way.

    TPJ was awesome, the problem is that how things ended before is making a whole bunch of us not wanting to take the plunge but stand back and watch.

    yes It's only $30 some odd dollars.. and to most here they burn that much lighting their Illegally Impotred Cubans.. But to the very few of us who are the working poor and can make $30.00 pay for lunchs for an entire week while eating better than the sod's who blow $30.00 a lunch.. I'm not gonna risk it.... not until I see they are actually alive.
    • They won't charge your credit card until the first issue. So, if they don't come alive, you haven't lost any money. I suppose there is the risk that they go dead before you got your 12 issues, not sure if you'd get a refund or not.

  • Why the journal is dying... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pongo000 ( 97357 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:30AM (#4403027)
    I am an active Perl developer, have been for several years. All the information I need is available on-line: PerlMonks, newsgroups, etc. I have never run across a question I've had that hasn't been asked by someone else, in one form or another.

    So give me one good reason why I would choose to spend my hard-earned dollars on a resource that is (1) dated as soon as the PDF hits the mailbox and (2) replicated by on-line resources?

    To support the Perl movement, you say? I do that already by teaching others about Perl. That is my contribution to the world of Perl: My time in exchange for evangelization, certainly a cause Larry Wall would find acceptable.

    I'm sorry, but in this day and age where information is abundantly available on the 'net, I see journal publication (dead-tree or on-line) as a poor, not-profitable business model. The idea that profit can be made from information is becoming obsolete, especially in the IT world (unless you have control over proprietary information, like Sun or Microsoft).

    BTW, I'm using the term "profit" loosely here, to simply mean money available from revenues that can be put back into the business. Nothing in this post is meant to reflect upon the business motives of any of the TPJ organizers.

    • Re:Why the journal is dying... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aengblom ( 123492 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:50AM (#4403202) Homepage
      So give me one good reason why I would choose to spend my hard-earned dollars on a resource that is (1) dated as soon as the PDF hits the mailbox and (2) replicated by on-line resources?

      Depends on how you answer these questions:
      • How much is your time worth?
      • Might the Perl Journal save you $12 of time per year?
      • Might the Perl Journal teach you something in high-quailty (read, short and easily understandable) fasion that is worth $12 during that year. More importantly, might that lesson not only intersted you, but allow you to never need to ask that question.


      Author of comment has no knowledge of Perl or Perl Journal, but believes in the value of high quality content.
      • You left out part of the equation.

        Specifically, if you subscribe to this journal, how much time will you spend sifting through articles of stuff you already knew about from perl.com, perl.org, or Perl Monks? The lost time looking for that nugget of wisdom may be cost you more than you gain from learning it.

        If there was very little free, professionally-written and useful information about Perl out on the web, then maybe $12 would be worth it, but as it is, I'm better off spending that $12 on three yuppie coffee drinks to consume while I read about the latest CPAN module updates on-line.

        I use Perl, but don't plan on subscribing.

        • Specifically, if you subscribe to this journal, how much time will you spend sifting through articles of stuff you already knew about from perl.com, perl.org, or Perl Monks?

          Turn it around: if you DON'T subscribe to TPJ, how much time will you spend sifting through stuff on perl.com, perl.org, or Perl Monks that you already know?

          I must admit as a disclaimer that I'm not really a Perl programmer (familiar with a small bit of the syntax, that's all), nor am I a particularl maven at sifting through enormous volumes of online information.. I glance over the slashdot comment forum about once a MONTH.. and waste about a hour each time I do.. but then the S/N on the /.CF is quite low indeed ("Damnitt, where's the genius NLP person when you need them most!")

    • Re:Why the journal is dying... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dog and Pony ( 521538 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:28AM (#4403537)
      I agree with you. I don't need it, for the same reasons, and I support the community the same way as you do.

      Still, I subscribed. Why? Well, partly because $12 is no cash, even for someone that doesn't have a lot of it.

      Also, I like the idea that people try to get money for what they do online instead of using banner ads. Even though a lot of great people put their, often superb, content online for free, that is not an option for some. And I do respect that. I'd rather pay for some content that I might like than have it soiled with banner ads. If I don't like it, fine, I'll stop paying.

      I strongly disagree that the dead-tree business is going away though - there is always room, and I think will always be for books and papers. For one, although they are possible to take with you on the toilet and to bed, they are not comfortable. Hell, it isn't even comfortable reading from your laptop when sitting in your favourite chair.

      All in all, people that write and provide content should be rewarded. Some with money, some with tolerating their stupid ads, and some with credit (maybe the greatest currency of them all). Which they want, is up to the provider.

      But of course, everyone wants the free lunch. Even when the grouceries to make the meal costs (like bandwidth, servers and time). *Sigh*

      No, you don't have to do what I do. But what I do, I do with open eyes, and because I a) want something, and b) support something. Maybe a poor choice, but at least I will know.

      • I strongly disagree that the dead-tree business is going away though - there is always room, and I think will always be for books and papers. For one, although they are possible to take with you on the toilet and to bed, they are not comfortable. Hell, it isn't even comfortable reading from your laptop when sitting in your favourite chair.

        Until these 'paper' monitors become practical and cheap. Then I think you will see a big change.

        http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/j un 2002/tc20020617_5587.htm

        -----

    • Re:Why the journal is dying... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rochlin ( 248444 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @12:03PM (#4403806) Homepage
      What's in TPJ that isn't available free on the net? Articles by people who know what they're talking about like Lincoln Stein and Randall Schwartz (instead of 1 paragraph blurbs). Articles that give detailed examples and code commentaries (I learned much more about how to generate Excel worksheets from Perl than I could get from the relatively thin, informal docs - an unfortunate CPAN tradition).

      I'll grant that it's not a good sole source for recent news, but for actually learning about something you didn't know (didn't know existed sometimes) in a much more friendly format than a POD, TPJ is just the best source. I subscribed before and I tried to subscribe to this new edition (and I posted this thread on /.)

    • So give me one good reason why I would choose to spend my hard-earned dollars on a resource that is (1) dated as soon as the PDF hits the mailbox and (2) replicated by on-line resources?

      Because I'd rather bring a magazine to my reading room (i.e. toilet) than a computer?

  • Save Perl (Score:5, Funny)

    by rigmort ( 584960 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @10:31AM (#4403038)
    Please don't turn Slashdot into a begging site. Next thing you know we'll be Saving Karyn here...

  • Not W3C compliant, I can't subscribe... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They aren't W3C compliant [w3.org] so I can't feel right about giving them money.
  • I think people are growing wary of "We're going away....unless you pay us this amount" every few months.
    No one wants to get involved with the Perl Journal just to have it go down the tubes yet again. I hate to say it, it's dead. Let it be.
  • Hmmm...while reading through some of the comments to the parent post, I started thinking about how real the possibility of never recieving this magazine should I subscribe to it is (it has happened before). I then read the earnest plea by TPJ for subscription money, which then made me think of the many hours I have spent flippng through pages of their old magazine. Yet, the wamr and fuzzy narrative about their first subscriber was lost on me, since I am still a bit angry at losing my subscription half way through...

    So, financially, I stand to lose but a few bucks. Morally, I could back a piece of quality journalism. Ironically, I could be taught another lesson for repeating past mistakes. Hmm....TPJ or 3 pr0n subscriptions - tough.

  • God I hate it non compliant websites, it wouldn't let me subscribe using opera, had to fire up IE.
    That just about cost them my subscription. You would think a mag devoted to perl would be able to handle browsers other than IE since perl is mainly used *nix systems you would think a great majority of users would be using konqueror, galeon, mozilla, hell even lynx. But alas i don't want to see it die so I still subscribed.

    Did anyone use a non IE browser and it have it work for them?

    Wang33

  • Help the Perl Journal Fund! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This sounds so much like that chick on the commercials-- you know the one: "For just twelve cents a day you can help a starving child to stand up, pick the flies off his face and put some damned clothes on."
  • Is Slashdot the place for this kind of solicitation? Sure it seems like a great place to find technical people, but isn't that what ads are for? I really don't see how the health of some technical publication is really news for nerds or even stuff that matters.
    • Sincerly I don't get from what sky or Moon you fell from. /. is deeply linked to technical aspects concerning open source code. This is not a generation NeXt place and we do not discuss colas or how to get girls for geeks. And ads are not here for decoration (with the exception of those M$ surrealistic offers).

      The problem of perl journal is exactly stuff that matters. Because it's about OSS and it's about one of the major journals about Perl.

      And it's news for nerds not jerks.

      Please mod this down. This guy is just another M$ flamebaiter. And you may mod me down also for being such a big flamer...
  • The problem is there are all sorts of free resources that provide whatever it is the TPJ hopes to provide. What the people who hope to keep the TPJ alive need to ask themselves is "what are we going to provide that isn't already available for free."

    Yes, one day the party will end and you will have to pay for information of value on the 'net. However that day is quite far away and I suspect the TPJ will in fact... die.

    It was good while it lasted.

    Stay tuned; I expect we'll see "RIP TPJ" here on slashdot shortly.

  • TPJ-"Thank you sir, may I have another?" (Score:4, Informative)

    by fence ( 70444 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:50AM (#4403712) Homepage
    I just signed up for TPJ pdf subscription, even though I got burned on the magazine subscription.

    I was a subscriber to the TPJ mag since issue #3, and had just sent in my payment for three more years when I received a notice that they were discontinuing The Perl Journal and would begin sending me Sys Admin mag instead to finish out my subscription.

    Received one Sys Admin mag in the mail, then nothing...What a deal.

    So, I must be a glutton for punishment to send them MORE money, but I really enjoyed TPJ's content and was usually able to apply something from each issue to my daily work.

    Twelve bucks a year is a pretty good investment for quality content that TPJ has provided in the past.
  • My understanding of what happened is that originally Jon was doing TPJ out of the back of his appartment. The quality was superb, both in articles and subscriber service. Then he transferred the subscriber services to Earthweb and retained editorial control. Subscriptions were supposed to be Earthweb's business, they were supposed to know what they were doing. The content continued to be superb, but the subscriber service was bad. Then Earthweb tanked, and after a long hiatus, Jon was able to get SysAdmin (CMP) to include TPJ as a supplement (once) and then they turned it into a section. I may have lost some subscription money in there, but I already subscribed to SysAdmin, so I'm satisfied to the extent I never missed an issue. The content was thin, but I attribute that to the monthly instead of quarterly issues. So my experience can be summarized as: when Jon Orwant is doing it, it rocks. When someone else does it (i.e., for money, not love), it sucks.

    So the obvious question for me is: what role is Jon Orwant playing in the current incarnation?
  • I don't know about the people who said they got hosed when the dead-tree version of TPJ went down last time. I was a subscriber, and when TPJ stopped publishing I got a year's subscription to the Linux Journal in its place. No, it wasn't the same but I like Linux too, and I definitely felt like I got my money's worth out of my subscription. I wasn't ripped off at all.

    And for those people who think that everything they need is online, I think they never read the original TPJ. Online resources simply don't have the depth and breadth of coverage of a single topic that TPJ did. Perl.com's articles aren't bad, but they always seem like an overview and not comprehensive enough. And PerlMonks is great for questions, but not so good if you want want to know more information than someone is willing to type into a little box on a website. :-D

    I know where my $12 bucks are going.

  • TPJ is well worth saving (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jacobito ( 95519 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @12:54PM (#4404313) Homepage
    Yes, you can find volumes of Perl help online. There's still something to be said for well written and well edited articles by credentialed authors. If you haven't read the Perl Journal before, have a look at the archives [sysadminmag.com] before you shrug and move on. You may find that the magazine is worth it after all.
  • ... But I am already propping up Apple and OSX ...

  • old media model not working ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by beanerspace ( 443710 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @03:44PM (#4405692) Homepage
    There is an interesting article over at HealYourChurchWebSite describing how a local newspaper in the D.C. area has turned from free content to subscription only [healyourch...ebsite.com] access. In the blog, the author complains that the local paper suffers because the content is not compelling, but rather a rehash of AP and Washington Post stories.

    Could this be the problem with the Perl Journal? Are they really only offering a rehash of articles you can find at PerlMonks, PerlCircus and other online news/user sources? Look at two titles from Fall 2002.
    • Parsing RSS Files with XML::RSS
    • Does SOAP Suck?

    I mean, can't I get the same skinny the first topic from XML.com and the other from Scripting.com?

    Or is it because Perl itself has reached a plateu? I mean, other than ActiveState, who's doing anything innovative and hot with regards to Perl development tools on a commercial basis? I mean aside from the obligatory Shareware editors?

    Perhaps it because much of the "action" is occuring in the Open Source arena, such as the CPAN and SourceForge that leave the Perl Journal much less to write about than they did 10 years ago?

    I mean I'm sorry to see it go, but I can't honestly say I'm going to be handicapped without it.

  • Sorry guys -- You burned me once... I had just paid for a nice 3 year subscription, and received
    2, maybe 3 issues after that, then nothing. Not even a notice saying "Sorry, we went belly up."
  • I cant even register, site errors.

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