> But we are too quick to blame Oracle and the developer of healthcare.gov for problems that come down to what is simply, a bad and incomplete spec that is impossible to build a good system against.

No. All specs are incomplete or bad.

The Waterfall model that everybody seems to still love,in which you assume a spec is complete before you begin work, was discredited in the very paper that named it. Fifty years of waterfall model system develop has borne that out time and time again.

Part of delivering a working figuring out where the specs are flawed, and changing them so that the delivered system works for the users. otherwise it only works for the contracting officers and the lawyers who handle the ensuing lawsuits.

You have no idea how badly amazon doesn't wan't this burden, or the one passed a couple of years ago that forces them to send 1099s to anybody how they pay more than $600 in a year. No business wants to pay to implement these processes. Especially since they are not revenue stream, they are very real cost drivers.

Annoying systems, with no business value, with lots of human intervention, and compliance costs. It's a bit like the cost of implementing Sabannes-Oxley, but on a smaller scale.

The specter of being a dead witness is what compels people to NOT testify.

I lost an entire box of cigars to fire that way.

I'm not so certain that the market is as rational as you give it credit for being.

Ten yard penalty for gratuitous Perl bashing.

Second down and 20.

Guido is the guy with the car.
Where I grew up, most of the Guidos were Irish kids anyway.

> The majority's view of Perl seems to be stuck back in the 90s.

The majority generally do not pay attention, and also hate it when their view of the universe is threatened by facts.

Perl will continue to have it's place, as do Fortran, COBOL, etc. It wasn't my first language, and isn't my last, but it's still my bread and butter.
Despite using it for 20 years, there are still some things that are idiomatic AWK for me. I'm sure it will be the same way with Perl, even after I've used Ruby or Python for a long time.

Are you using 5.16.2?
Are you using Moose/Mouse/Moo for complex data types and/or object oriented programming.?

Perl is alive and well.

If you think of 5 as being a syntax identifier, then you might be pleased to see all of the development that's gone on since Perl 4 gave way to Perl 5.

It sounds a little bit like you're complaining that Perl's development has not followed your idea of semantic version numbering.

The best defense is a good offense - Mel, the cook on Alice.

Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo James Cameron James Cameron

They used to study brain injuries by whacking ferrets in their cute little heads.

Where are my moderator points when I need them!?!

Hospitals are notorious this this kind of IT stupidity.