In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Gabor Szabo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> During the beginner Perl classes I teach people often ask me why is Perl > better than .... X ? you can't answer that question without more information. you need to know what they are trying to do, and what their business needs are. Perl is not the best tool for every job, and if you think that, then i seriously suggest you reconsider being a Perl advocate. the best advocacy is that in which the other person comes to the same conclusion that you advocate, not where you tell him what the conclusion is. do less preaching and more teaching ;). the question you need to answer is "Why is Perl a good tool for X task" and leave other languages out of it unless you have enough experience with the other languages to say "Why Language Y is a good tool for X task". Let the person make up their own mind based on the benefits of both languages and their immediate needs. Perl will not always win, and it doesn't need to. and i strongly believe that if you can't answer this sort of question from your personal experience, you're doing nothing but spreading FUD and heresay about the other language. you probably don't like that when it happens to Perl, so don't do it with another tool. you won't win over the skeptical with that sort adversarial approach. you also need to protect yourself, too. i've taught a lot of Perl and every class has some really sharp people who know a lot more than i do about a particular topic. if i start spouting off about Java, for instance, i'll probably get trounced by the local Java expert and then i'll look really foolish, which means everything else i say is worthless. all i can relate is personal experience -- beyond that i'm setting myself up for failure. if i don't know, i say "I don't know. Why do you use Language Y?", and i get an education. :)
