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Perl Programming

The Status Of The Perl Journal 59

Posted by Hemos from the what's-gonna-happen dept.
A number of people have been wondering what's going to happen to TPJ [?] in light of Earthweb's (the owner of TPJ) sale of most of its properties to Internet.com. Many rumours have been flying around and Jon Orwant has decided to clear things. I've put his status update below.

From Jon Orwant:

"January 2, 2001

Some folks have been asking me about the status of The Perl Journal #20, and prospective authors have been asking me about deadlines for future issues. The answers: TPJ #20 is in press and ready to print, but EarthWeb (the owner of TPJ) has told the printer to stop the presses until further notice. I am currently responding to proposals sent to me with approximately "I don't know if there's going to be another issue, but when I do I'll respond to your proposal."

Since the future of the magazine is in doubt, I can't in good conscience greenlight proposals; I will not encourage an author to spend weeks writing an article when I know that it might never be printed. So I've told people who've asked what I know about the current situation: while EarthWeb has sold many of its properties to internet.com so that it can focus on "career services", it has not sold TPJ. However, EarthWeb has also made it clear that they don't want to publish TPJ any more.

This story has started to leak out to the Perl community and has already mutated a bit in not-quite-correct directions, so I wanted to write this note to set the record straight. Or as straight as I can, given what little I know about EarthWeb's decisions.

While TPJ's future is very much up in the air, people shouldn't take this as any indicator about Perl itself. TPJ was doing just fine back when I ran it, there's no shortage of content out there, and the magazine could easily go bimonthly and then monthly -- indeed, when EarthWeb acquired TPJ I had thought that was the plan. I still enjoy the editing, the authors enjoy the writing, and the designers enjoy the designing. What happens now is up to EarthWeb. And no, I'm not suggesting that people bombard them with e-mail. Heck, they just laid off 100 people, so I'm not even sure who to bombard. Eventually there will be some resolution, and when there is I'll write again to let everyone know.

As of December 27th, this matter is now in the courts, and so I have to adopt the "just the facts" tone of this letter without portraying my opinions. Someday I'll be able to talk more about what is happening in these strange days; until then, you'll have to conjure up your own adjectives on my behalf.

Cheers,

Jon Orwant "
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The Status of The Perl Journal More

The Status of The Perl Journal

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  • what about Slashdot? (Score:3)

    by deander2 ( 26173 ) <public@nOSPaM.kered.org> on Tuesday January 02, 2001 @08:56PM (#535711) Homepage
    i know this seems like an unlikely possibility, but why could this not happen to slashdot? what would be done about it? does taco have a gameplan if VA goes belly-up?

    however remote this seems now, don't discount it. murphy's law.

  • Sad (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What an incredible loss this would be to the Perl Community. Not just as a information tool but also as a visable indicator to the world of Perl's importance. It wasn't too long ago that I had to almost use a shotgun to get my boss to allow Perl in house. A national publication helps give Perl credentials.

  • Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Tim? (Score:5)

    by stevens ( 84346 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2001 @09:02PM (#535713) Homepage

    I love TPJ.

    It's in good editorial hands, and the community produces some great material for it. I think it's a great fit for the Perl community [such little as I've seen of it].

    So, if EarthWeb doesn't want it, perhaps O'Reilly would like to break into periodical publishing. C'mon, Tim, you know you want to!

  • oh no it's Byte all over again.. (Score:4)

    by Dr. Awktagon ( 233360 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2001 @09:07PM (#535714) Homepage

    Damn it, not another fine magazine getting tossed around. Usually that's the first step before it's put to death. What's next, Dr. Dobbs? Linux Journal?

    What happens to these magazines? Why can't the people and articles just get regrouped under another name or something? For some reason I thought Orwant actually had the rights to TPJ and such. What's with the court case?

    Oh well, just venting. I could never understand why when people are willing to pay for a magazine (especially one like TPJ, they couldn't get THAT much from advertising) why the magazine can be killed.

    And just like Byte, I get the news RIGHT AFTER renewing my subscription.

    I hope TPJ is back in full effect (ON PAPER please, no TPJ.com for me) and this is all just publisher silliness.

  • What an incredible loss this would be to the Perl Community. Not just as a information tool but also as a visable indicator to the world of Perl's importance. It wasn't too long ago that I had to almost use a shotgun to get my boss to allow Perl in house. A national publication helps give Perl credentials.
  • Is there not enough Perl information on the net anyways? Just do a Google "Perl" search, and I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for...

  • I think so, Brain, but where are we going to find a monkey in rubber pants?
  • Slashdot is sort of his hobby first.. Play toy second.. job third..
    What would happen if Andover was bought over? It happend.. VA.. But Slashdot remains Slashdot..

    What would happen if Slashdot were to cease being Slashdot?
    I think the game plan is the same for all the folowing posabilitys:
    If the new owners of Slashdot started dictating editorial policy, If the new owners started changing what Slashdot was, If Slashdot was tossed in the ash can and left for dead...

    Taco would quit Slashdot and move on with his life..

    Why?
    Becouse Slashdot is hobby first... if that were to ever change... Slashdot is dead.. and Taco can afford to dump it and do something else.

    Taco is also part of BSI... Block Stackers Intergalatic.. If Slashdot pukes he pulls back to BSI..

    Also people please quit quoting the stupid stock reports... Most of the investors still don't quite know how to take the Linux market and are reacting to silly things. Problems with Redhat don't effect VA Linux much...
  • A futile troll. The journal speaks for itself - it's not authored by a bunch of journalist 9-to-5'ers but some of the most able and intelligent programmers that you'll find. TPJ is one of the few periodicals that I've ever found that is really worth reading every page.

    With that said, I hope that TPJ is able to find a home that is worthy of it. EarthWeb really didn't do it much justice.

  • It could, in theory. Thankfully, though, electronic publishing has a much smaller upfront cost than dead-tree versions. If VA were to die, then it would easy enough to move slashdot's capabilities over to somewhere like Hemos' web page [hemos.net] as a random example that most slashdotters could probably find with little difficulty.

    Of course, peoples' Karma would be restarted from scratch and the old database of articles might have to be left behind. (is there any sort of GPLish license on the /. database?)

    On a tangent, This is actually one of the nicer things about Free Software and Open Source projects -- It's almost impossible to kill them via death from above. Corporations are very militaristic and heirarchical in nature. Some bean counter can kill corporate project with the stroke of a pen. Open source, on the other hand, is has a far more democratic base. As long as a couple of capable people are interested in keeping it alive, it'll keep crawling.
    --

  • arghhh (Score:3)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2001 @09:26PM (#535721) Journal
    The cluelessness of pointy haired bosses and other corporate bean counter types never ceases to amaze me.

    On the other hand, this is part of the problem when a good property is in the hands of someone who doesn't know what to do with it.

    Internet.com would be an excellent place for TPJ. Unfotunately, it looks like Earthweb decided to canniablize the resource, fools that they are.

    The EarthWeb press release is HERE [corporate-ir.net]

    The essential information in part includes

    "The Earthweb IT and Internet professional content assets that internet.com is acquiring are among the best properties available on the Web. They will be a great fit for us and we will be able to greatly leverage these properties in terms of readership and revenue opportunities. We also look forward to potentially establishing other strategic initiatives with dice.com in the coming year," stated internet.com Chairman and CEO Alan M. Meckler.

    In addition to earthweb.com, the websites acquired by internet.com include:

    Developer.com (www.developer.com), Datamation (www.datamation.com), CrossNodes (www.crossnodes.com),SysOpt.com (www.sysopt.com), ERP Hub (www.erphub.com), Open Source IT (www.opensourceit.com), Javascripts.com (www.javascripts.com), JARS.com (www.jars.com), HTML Goodies (www.htmlgoodies.com), Gamelan (www.gamelan.com), CodeGuru.com www.codeguru.com), Intranet Journal (www.intranetjournal.com), CIN (http://www.cin.earthweb.com/) and EarthWeb Direct (www.earthwebdirect.com).
    So it looks like The Perl Journal is just being phased out despite being a highly valued professional resource.

    of course, this is completely speculative on my part.

    More Earthweb press releases located here [corporate-ir.net] including a real audio broadcast of the announcement, which might be interesting.

  • I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who'd be willing to take it on for the sake of keeping some part of the perl community alive.

    Personally, I'm really taken aback by this news. I've considered TPJ to be one of my more valuable resources; I'll be crushed if it's gone.

  • Nice (Score:5)

    by Shoeboy ( 16224 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2001 @09:27PM (#535723) Homepage
    TPJ's future is very much up in the air

    Someday I'll be able to talk more about what is happening in these strange days; until then, you'll have to conjure up your own adjectives on my behalf.

    Well that certainly answered all of my questions.
    Thank god we got all that cleared up.
    --Shoeboy
  • This is of course speculation and won't be answered because of the fix he's in.

    The matter is in the courts most likely means I sold an interest for stock, their stock is now worthless, by killing the issue they have devalued my own remaining interest, and they are keeping me from making money with my remaining interest. So, I took them to court.

    The bottom line is that TPJ is an innocent bystander injured by a large train wreck.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Any time slashdot dies there will be a dozen slashdot wannabees vying for readers eyes.

    Besides, most of the developers have already moved to K5.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • He just went to the Alan Greenspan School Of Public Communications. ;^)


    --

  • On the face of it, that idea might actually make a good bit of strategic sense for O'Reilly. Their perl line of books is very strong, and I've heard it's one of their more profitable "properties." Doesn't Larry Wall already work for them as well? If they could assimilate the editorial and production staff whole-cloth, this could work very smoothly (especially if #20 is ready to ship, a nice initial slug of income).

    The downside is that periodicals publishing may not mesh real well with their business internally e.g. tax and regulatory stuff may be different in subtle ways from books (like, some states have more lenient tax structures and breaks for periodicals publishers, 3 of my 4 magazine subscriptions come from Colorado for example). I'm not in the publishing biz (my fiancee is, so what info I have is second hand), so take my random thoughts with a grain of NaCl.


    --
  • Perhaps a subscribable web-zine then? Although I guess one of their USP's was that it was in paper format.
  • It could indeed happen to slashdot, and the fact that someone modded your comment as 'Troll' show a dangerous blindness. I would assume that Taco &c are bound by non-competes, thus depriving the post-slashdot world of a logical center.
    Presumably the existing community could move to another platform, possibly running slashcode. But there will be fragmentation, with many small competing sites trying to seize the /. mindshare. Also, it's a mistake to assume that virtual communities can be murdered and then resurrected effortleslly. Typically when a community is killed it never comes back. Bruce Sterling mentions an example of this in The Hacker Crackdown - someone built a BBS on a computer owned by AT&T. One day AT&T decided to pull the plug on that machine. Of course, with the internet we have other ways to ask each other 'what happened to our BBS?' and potentially reunite.
  • Sounds like even if the worst were to happen and TPJ is gone, something will rise from the ashes. Perl Mongers and Hackers tend to be survivors and Perl could not be more resilient - it was built that way. I just hope my recently paid renewal fee will somehow survive as well. :-)
  • Basic then evolved (or should I say "mutated") first into a Pascal-like syntax with procedures instead of line numbers...

    Well, Perl already uses that "Pascal-like" syntax, so you obviously don't mean this literally. But maybe Object-Orientation is to Perl what functions are to Basic?
    Perl and Basic share some similarities: both are pragmatist's languages, concerned with getting the job done rather than theoretical purity. Both are going to evolve in whatever direction pleases their developers, without one atom of regard for theory. Both enable a very rapid feedback loop in development.
  • Well that makes a lot of sense. But if that's the case, why is Earthweb willing to go to court for this? Wouldn't they rather sell their remaining interest in TPJ to Orwant for a pittance, thinking "good riddance"?

  • I've subscribed to TPJ since issue #3 and it's been a wonderful resource over the years - not only have I learned a great deal from it, but it's given me lots of ideas for things to write and improve over the years.

    I've only just got the last couple of issues since EarthWeb screwed up my subscription, and I've just resubscribed for a year. I don't care about loss of money, but loss of any future TPJs is very very sad.

    Jamie
  • I was just about to sign up for a TPJ sub. I had it on my Christmas list and everything - I've gotta say I'm kinda glad nobody actually chose that item though!

    I'll have to be content with the pile of back issues I've got. With any luck TPJ will come back in some other form.
    "Give the anarchist a cigarette"
  • If O'Reilly isn't interested then another scientific publisher should jump in. It's a pity to see that printed version of the journal go away. I believe it would have success overseas. And even if Perl resources are all over online, the printed journal is very much appreciated overseas.

    For example the German Linux Magazine has regularly an article on Perl. Many in Germany are reading Linux Magazine just for that Perl article. Coulnd't it be sold to a real big technical or scientific publisher (Elsevier, Kluwer, Springer, O'Reilly ?) That's were I would like to see it.

  • Re:"The matter is in the courts", translated (Score:3)

    by orwant ( 49048 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @03:08AM (#535736)
    That's not accurate, Bruce. I have never owned any stock in EarthWeb.

    Jon Orwant
  • Many sales like TPJ's and Slashdot's often include contractural obligations for the new owner to continue the production. I don't know any details of TPJ's or Slashdot's contracts, but it wouldn't surprise me if neither EarthWeb nor VA was legally disallowed from killing them off entirely. Of course, contract disputes are often settled in courts of law (and Orwant said something about courts in his letter); we'll just have to wait and see.
  • OK. Well, I won't push you any farther. Sorry.
  • I recieved 3 of my 4 quarterly issues this year's subscription where the hell is my refund of 1/4 of my subscription fee?

    how about publishing TPJ elsewhere? they can't kill TPJ, they can just kill the trees it's printed on.
  • So, Here I am reading an article about how LJ isn't being published, staring at a banner ad for, you guessed it, LJ.
  • Although Byte had a large number of readers at the time CMP stopped publication, it was loosing advertisers. One could argue that it was loosing advertisers because of its editorial focus. It had articles about everything from software development, to chip design, to computer system and peripherals, to software applications reviews.And all in a relitivly OS neutral viewpoint. Developers of applications didn't want to advertise in a magazine about CPU design. OS vendors didn't want to advertise in a magazine reviewing hardware their product doesn't run under. CPU manufactures didn't want to advertise in a magazine discussing OOP.

    There are a few web pages discussing the end of Byte magazine, including Tom Halfill's Tom's Unofficial BYTE FAQ: The Death of BYTE Magazine and Jerry Pournelle's The Byte Fiasco

    Could this happen the TPJ too? Jon implies that the magazine was financially strong when he sold it to EarthWeb, but advertisers may have left in the past year. (Take a look at your average large web site, and see how many "house ads" are running.) I know there are some advertisers that want to target an audience who use perl, but is it enough. Take a look at other computer magazines, and see how many ads are there for compilers and libraries. Since the perl interpreter and CPAN are both free, it takes a big hit in those advertising sectors.

  • Hmmm, I just subscribed again about a month ago....figures. But really, what happens? If this takes a year to work out, does that mean I am out of that money? While being out that amount of money has little or no affect on me...the principle of it kinda bugs me. If it were the old days and it was Orwant and the rest running the mag...well, I wouldn't really care(I would trust them to make the effort). But this is a corporation we are talking about. Sounds like they are holding on to a piece of their business that is making money and not providing the service....seems like fraud to me. Which is what bothers me about this situation. Am I the only one getting this vibe?

    Dimes
  • Oops, meant TPJ. I think.
  • Actually, you might be surprised. I was looking for documentation on how to use a specific Win32 COMM module, and TPJ was the only place on the web with useful documentation. I signed up on the spot.

    Naturally I get this news shortly afterward. :(
  • Besides, most of the developers have already moved to K5.

    I think Advogato is more of a developer hangout (thanks in large part to its wonderfully draconian trust metric), while K5 is more of a media/culture discussion area these days.

  • The BASIC your describing isn't the BASIC I was using in the '80s. Mine had stronly typed variables, record datatypes, separate compilation, and block conditional and loops. Digital did a good job with VAX BASIC. The BASIC you're describing were the variants designed to run on the 4KB microcomputers of the day, variants that make Kemeny and Kurtz cringe.

    I think you're right in that Perl will evolve. Its intentionally derivative nature makes it easy to modify. It already has changed greatly between perl1 and perl5, and since work is already being done on perl 6, it seems to continue on its same path.

  • The Perl Journal has been an invaluable resource and learning tool for me for years. Thanks, Jon, for doing such a stand up job as editor, and to the many contributors and staff that have made it something I'd be heart-broken to see vanish. It's the one magazine I never miss.

    Good luck, and I hope this all comes out ok...

  • I really hope it doesn't go away, it is by far one of my favorite mags to read, and one of the few magazines I've found that still have lots of programming examples.

    For better or worse I learned alot about programming by typing in Basic programs into my c64 reading Compute's Gazette and playing with that code. TPJ is the same way, lots of articles that are all about cool ways to code and all the code is in the issue!
  • This is a rare case where a "Me, Too!" is in fact useful (I hope). Mr. O'Reilly, behold the truckloads of slashdotter Perl-lovers (er, like me) who are willing to queue up to pay money for The Perl Journal.

    I Love TPJ. I Love Perl. Hell, I also loved all the Perl Conferences and most of the O'Reilly books (Perl or otherwise).

    Please, fellow slashdotters -- join me in encouraging O'Reilly to Do The Right Thing.

  • I had a couple issues not show up, but after sending 3-4 e-mails they eventually sent me all the issues I was asking for (they even sent two copies of the same issue one time :)

    Keep bugging them and you'll eventually get your copy!
  • aarrgh. what about us who just subscribed?
  • Nice to see that subscriptions and renewals are still being accepted... Tried to ask customer service what is going to happen to my $36 renewal... Just got to leave a voice mail for 'manager of customer service'. Oh well, can't expect to get what you pay for these days.... Sad to see such a GREAT MAG get hit by the damn corporate shrapnel... Hopefully TPJ will be able to rise again... I will be watching for more from Jon Orwant as to what happened....
  • Agreed. I've been a subscriber for 2 years now. When do I see my 1/4 refund for this quarter that they're not going to print.
  • You dolt, the entire stock market tanked. The stock price of VA doesn't tell you shit.
  • >I guess one of their USP's was that it was in paper format.

    Yeah, if it hadn't been for that fact, I wouldn't have paid for the magazine. :-)
  • Figures. I finally found a good magazine, subscribe, order a bunch of back issues (which explains why I haven't seen the back issues btw) and now it looks like they might vanish.

    Kinda makes you wonder about things like Linux Journal, Linux Mag, and others.

  • Actually, O'Reilly used to publish a quarterly X windows journal (was it The X Journal? I can't recall).
  • Roger that and wilco, Big Ten...TPJ is a wonderful read, and would definitely rate my subscription $.

  • O'Reilly used to publish a quarterly X windows journal (was it The X Journal?

    Boss, I want a susbcription for "X Journal". I like the graphics.
    __
  • But this is a corporation we are talking about. Sounds like they are holding on to a piece of their business that is making money and not providing the service....seems like fraud to me. Which is what bothers me about this situation. Am I the only one getting this vibe? No, You are not. Maybe I'm confused about the process here but perhaps a class action lawsuit is in order. This is assuming that dEarthWeb isn't filing for bankruptcy and has simply decided not to publish the mag. and keep the subscription funds. In any case, here's one more vote for Tim & co to have a go at this one. It should be noted that I'm not a lawyer and I don't even like playing them on TV. -T
  • but didn't you enjoy your consolation subscription to business 2.0???
  • I sent in this email this morning:

    "I just signed up online last week for a 1-year subscription to TPJ. I read this morning in the news that there are no immediate plans to continue publishing the magazine.

    I think this would be a tragic mistake, and strongly encourage the continued publication of the magazine.

    In the meantime, I do not wish to take chances with my money. Please cancel my subscription signup and confirm reversal of my credit card charge. When you decide to publish TPJ I will gladly sign up again for another subscription."

    and got back this reply:

    Right now the status of the Perl Journal is unclear, although EarthWeb will not be processing any new subscriptions. I see many accounts that you setup online, but none were billed.

    Sincerely,

    Mike Brent
    EarthWeb Customer Support
    (303)801-1298
    mikeb@earthweb.com

    So it looks like they have at least a *small* clue about good business practices! Hope it all works out in the end...

  • An update:

    I talked with the manager of the subscription department. She said that everyone who has outstanding issues with Earthweb for would get a refund of un-mailed issues and that the online subscription was to be turned off yesterday. (It was still online about an hour ago, as far as I could tell). If you paid by check in the last week or so, she said those checks were NOT processed.

    She also pointed out that there still is no obituary yet.... and if TPJ pulls through, subscriptions would be transferred to the new publisher.... It seemed like she had been talking to quite a few of us who are going to miss TPJ if it can't be saved.

    As with most of this thread, "This is all word of mouth, and I take no responsibility for anything taken out of context or just plain wrong".

    Let's keep hope that TPJ is strong enough to pull through!!

    Is there anyone out there in the periodical field that could save a GREAT magazine???

  • so as not to slight jon orwant and the other perl journal editors and contributors who have worked so hard over the last few years on a truly superb publication, i want to amend my above post with the comment that, though i'm annoyed at the prospect of a wasted subscription fee, i'm especially annoyed at the prospect of the termination of my favorite technical journal. thanks guys for the great magazine, and i hope it finds a new home.
  • Ha! You think that was bad? I, too, renewed my BYTE subscription just before it was killed... IIRC I bought 3 years worth. Only I didn't get Business 2.0 for the remainder of the 3 years... I got Windows magazine. :-)

    Needless to say, I called and got it canceled.
  • I get the impression that Perl6 will mainly add a more approachable OO syntax for OO programming. At least that's what we'll see. Behind the scenes, it's supposed to be opened up so that you can hack the language more easily, without stepping on other people's work. Is it old hat? Well, Perl's hard to recommend for large projects because it doesn't feel like an OO language, has many "weird" operators, and doesn't make those nice javadocs. Though it is capable of large, multi-person development, it requires discipline. I believe that Perl6 is attempting to address these issues. VB did that for itself too, and wrapped it in an IDE. When perl gets more OO, it will probably span an IDE somehow. Personally, I would be happy with the OO adaptations. It'll be a great preservation move. They won't cause all the great operators and functions to go away (fingers crossed). I believe that arrays will be first class objects, not "just another object". I believe that hashes will too. I also believe that the very clean syntax for anonymous functions will remain.
  • Bah, you seem to be implying that the stock actually deserved to be worth $300. It was WAAAAAAY overinflated and everyone but you knew it. Get over it and stop flaming VA, dammit.
  • I started subscribing to The Perl Journal back when it was a simple standard paper (no flashy cover) journal -- at least for four years.

    TPJ has always been somewhat lax in mailings -- no criticism of the editors/publishers, just reality. However, after I stopped getting copies for over four months, I contacted TPJ. They said that my subscription ran out (not true) and that no renewal notices are ever sent out (Is this a real magazine publisher??? I thought, by law, magazine publishers were required to send out renewals twice per week ;-) ). I re-ordered the publication and purchased several back issues. I like to support the PERL Community. That was over two months ago -- still no back issues, still no new issues. Follow-up calls confirm payment and indicate that the issues will be going out sometime.

    I hate to see TPJ go. This is one of the few worthwhile technical journals. However, I just seriously caution subscribers about sending money to the EarthWeb organization. EarthWeb does not appear to be, in any way, committed to PERL.

  • WEll HTTrack will mirror the whole thing including the sections where you need to log-in (I modified the Linux version to serve up cookies when requested... log in copy the cookie and voila!)

    I suggest that all who dont have it and have subscribed should mirror it before it's gone. I know I haven't got everything cince issue 1 on my shelf....

    I hate to rape and pilliage(im sure in their terms)... but I find that I mirror on my servers valuable sites more and more... because they keep going away.

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