Editing Magnifica Humanitas: A Plain-Language Overview (section)

=== The Perl community itself is worth cultivating ===

Finally, the Virtuous Programmer Initiative is not merely about improving individual programmers.

It is about cultivating a community in which good programming can continue to exist.

Perl has accumulated decades of knowledge, modules, practices, personalities, mistakes, successes, humor, and craftsmanship.

That inheritance is valuable because of the people and useful work it enables.

Preserving Perl therefore does not mean placing the language in a museum.

It means creating conditions under which another generation can use it productively.

That includes:

* welcoming apprentices;
* preserving working knowledge;
* maintaining useful modules;
* documenting difficult systems;
* creating new commercial opportunities;
* demonstrating modern applications;
* encouraging independent craftsmen;
* producing books and essays;
* building tools;
* exploring artificial intelligence without surrendering judgment;
* and reminding the community that technical excellence is ultimately for the good of persons.

This is why the Virtuous Programmer Initiative begins with virtue rather than merely technique.

Technique tells us '''how'''.

Virtue helps us judge '''when''', '''why''', '''for whom''', and '''toward what end'''.