On Fri, Aug 11, 2000 at 11:26:17AM -0400, Chris Nandor wrote:
> At 0:46 -0400 2000.08.11, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >threading is *still* experimental, Unicode support
> >is only recent, but incomplete, and there is no usuable compiler.
>
> perl IS the compiler ... ;-)
Exactly. It doesn't translate to machine code. Now, I know all the
reasons and the arguments that you don't really need it, etc, etc,
but it is a drawback. And what's worse is that even if there would be
a compiler, it wouldn't be much of a speed up. Java compilers are still
advancing. Perl compilers still aren't there.
> >If I were to pick a language for a large project (many coders, long
> >period of evolvement), Java wouldn't be my first choice. But Java would
> >be an option. Perl wouldn't be a contestent.
>
> It depends on the project and the setting. If I were doing a hacker / open
> source project, Perl would be my first choice. If I were doing a corporate
> project, well, it would depend on the project.
Perl would be your first choice of an open source project? I wouldn't want
to manage projects like Apache or the GIMP with hundreds of contributers
each of them writing in Perl. (Heh, feature X is suddenly broken, what
happened? [... countless days pass...] Well, when we accepted a patch
to fix bug Y, $; was suddenly globbered in some far away code.)
> The fact is that companies hire three types of programmers (in no
> particular order): hackers, computer science majors, and morons. Hackers
> can do Perl just fine, morons can't do anything without Visual Studio, and
> computer science majors often follow the buzzwords and the money, which
> means Java.
What a silly idea of computer science majors do you have. First of all,
computer science isn't about writing programs. Secondly, CS is science;
it ain't business school. But then, maybe I just went to a real university.
> So if I am setting up a project with a long lifetime, I have
> to consider who will be following me and its impact on the company. And
> that is the biggest reason to stay away from Perl. Not because of its
> little niggly things here and there, but because, in many companies, I know
> the persons following me what know what the hell to do with my code, even
> if it is as perfect as I can make it.
>
> This problem plagues all languages that aren't C, C++, Java, or anything
> blessed by Microsoft. Python is even worse, because almost no one knows it.
>
> I'm not saying there aren't things inherent in Perl to make it a poor
> choice. I am saying that it is factors not inherent in the language which
> are most important. Finding people who are both competent AND like to use
> free software is just difficult.
Why do you bring free software in the discussion? Writing a program in Perl
doesn't make it free software, just like writing it in Java doesn't make it
not free software. And I don't think that the fact that perl itself is free
software is much of an issue. There's some FUD that this is the reason you
cannot get support, but that's probably minor.
Abigail
