On Mon, Jul 02, 2001 at 02:31:27PM +0800, Selena Sol wrote:
> What if there is no great need for cross platform....does Perl dull in
> comparison to other technologies?
No. As Gnat was fond of saying at last year's YAPC, "Perl is the last
programming language you ever need". :-)
When cross-platform deployment isn't an overriding issue, there
are other aspects of Perl that compare well to other technologies;
developer productivity and CPAN come to mind.
> Hmmm, one thing just to make sure we are talking about the same
> thing....when I compare Java to Perl, I generally compare Java to mod_perl
> (or some other acclerated quasi-app server environment) and I am talking
> about web applications as a subset of the Perl universe.
I was talking about something more fundemental. I don't have any
experience with J2EE, and wouldn't extrapolate from my experiences.
I'd love to hear more specifics about how mod_perl compares to
J2EE, the relative strengths and weaknesses of each platform, etc.
> What do you mean by "multiple implementation concerns?"
Remember the problems with applets running under Netscape, IE, etc.? That.
The current state of Java probably isn't that bad, but it's the
nature of multiple implementations of a single standard to behave
subtly differently, be it a JVM, C compiler, C++ compiler, etc.
> Many clients find that it is cheaper and more cash-flow conscious to
> outsource support rather than maintain full time staff to do it, especially
> when technology is not their core competency.
The technology marketplace is large enouugh that practically anything
said about it is true. There are plenty of businesses where throwing
money at the problem is the cheapest possible solution. And there
are those who choose technologies based on the skillset of the
largest pool of cheap talent. And there are those who choose a
technology based on acquisition cost, maintenance cost, support
cost, training cost, development cost, competitive advantage, etc.
Sometimes those discussions favor Perl. Sometimes they don't.
Z.
