>>> John replied:
>>> Perhaps, but most of that code is necessary simply to get a
>>> programming environment roughly equivalent to core perl.
>> Selena continued:
>> Hmmm, I am not convinced of that.
>John added:
> Yeah, sorry; on reflection, I think my statement was not well
> considered. I was just thinking of all the stupid classes for
> doing basic stuff like containers and iterators. They're not
> necessary in Perl only because Perl is not strongly typed
> (by most definitions; see
>
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&safe=off&th=a37d423b6f570e63,10&rnum=4
&ic=1&selm=20010623153305.20460.qmail%40plover.com )
Hmmm, then again, we may not want to be bragging about the lack strong
typing in the enterprise market where strong typing is one of the ways that
enterprise clients help to ensure consistency and object sharing between
developers over many generations....
I like that perl does not force you to do things, but at the same
time....sometimes the discipline built into a language makes your coding
better.....sometimes....ala use strict.
>> Selena asked:
>> What if there is a security hole in a CPAN module and the author is in
>> the middle of final exams? What if you need to extend the module with
>> customized features?
> John replied:
> Easy to do; you have the source. What's the problem?
Hmmm, this is not what an enterprise client wants to hear. This clients
wants to hear that she can call an expert at 2AM and have it fixed by 9. Not
that she can find someone in her organization to figure it out eventually.
>> Selena wrote:
>> The fact that these modules are not supported by Perl Inc. means that you
>> may feel a bit....hanging over the edge. It is not a secure place to be
if
>> you are a CIO. If you then look at Java which has a more
>> centralized/controlled library, you can at least be sure that the core is
>> supported by Sun (although at a high cost).
> John replied:
> I have nothing to say about Sun or its support of Java; but if you
> need that kind of support for existing Perl modules, you can hire a
> Perl programmer and have the customizations made locally.
I do not think it is so easy to find Perl programmers as compared to Java
programers in the market. :( And though I wish Active State all the best
and think they are just the bees knees, I do not think they have the global
respect that Sun has.
>> Selena said:
>> When I say package, I mean that we need to come up with a pitch
>> that could convince a client in 5 sentences why CPAN is great.
> John responded:
> Why do you think that's hard?
I personally have never heard a convincing business sales pitch for CPAN.
Let's hear it :)
