On Tue, Jul 03, 2001 at 09:58:11AM +0800, Selena Sol wrote:
> > No. As Gnat was fond of saying at last year's YAPC,
> > "Perl is the last programming language you ever need". :-)
>
> Well, it has been a while since I have been to a conference. These days, I
> can only afford to send my R&D and/or projects team. I will be sending Stas
> Bekman and Gunther Birznieks to O'Reilly (they will both be speaking so you
> can say hello for me if you are there)....but....<sniff>...there is no
> budget for managers <sniff>.
>
> However, if I had been at YAPC, I would have told Gnat that this argument is
> a bit silly. I know it was said partially in jest, but I mean....hey....one
> should use the programming language appropriate to the task at hand and I
> bet that even Larry would NEVER say that Perl is the right choice for every
> task :)
"The right choice" implies there's only one right choice for a task.
That's a false statement - for most, if not all, tasks, more than one
language can be "*a* right choice". Not that there is a sharp boundary
between "right" and "wrong" choices; not at all.
Once you know Perl, Perl is a "good enough" choice for most programming
tasks - that is, any benefits another language gives don't compensate the
negative aspects of using an unfamiliar language.
Often, when it's announced that language X has to be used for task Y,
(where X is often "Java") and asked why X is part of the specification,
the question remains unanswered, or answered with typical manager hype
("It's an industry standard!").
Abigail
