At 11:09 +1100 10/10/08, Charlie Garrison wrote: >So, if anyone has any actual points (pros/cons) of a given >language, then please share. We may have some budding >programmers on the list who could benefit from the comparison. >But we're probably already veering too far off-topic. This >should probably be taken off-list.
I like perl. It is a practical extraction and report language that has its place. I use it regularly for preprocessing the content of HTML files downloaded from the web. With curl as the download mechanism I can keep stock reports, broker's statement and the like right in front of me. I also do some engineering and I find perl useful for that too. It's actually about as useful as FORTRAN was years ago. There is no compile and link stage that really is required only when speed of computation is far more important that speed of development and test. BBedit to examine the HTML document with search to find the table data that is important followed by creation of regular expressions in perl that find the data between the advertising and a few escapes to shell to execute curl and I'm done. I do end up using BBEdit's search after selecting and copying stuff from a browser so I can find the proper place in the HTML. That would be a whole lot easier if the search dialog were not modal. I would really like to upgrade but I'm limited to 8.2 or so because I refuse to do away with my SE/30 file server that demands OS 10.3.9 maximum. I am moving toward gedit as a replacement because I can modify that one if I feel like it and ubuntu talks to my SE/30 just fine. Coming from MPW I am really frustrated that I can't execute a perl script from within an HTML document that I have opened. I have to do that in a worksheet that isn't the same as any other BBEdit document. Cheez. Why not? I am an occasional contributor to the perl 6 list but it's mostly to complain about ideas involving strange mathematical concepts. Perl 6 wants to do complex numbers and vectors that do not compare to the way physicists and engineers think. Vector multiplication and addition are not even close to what we learn in school. But Newtonian vectors really have no place in a practical extraction and report tool anyway. As for object orientation. . . It's fine when it helps. But for the fastest solution of an engineering problem it's a real PITA to be forced into some new object when what is really needed is a subroutine with well defined arguments. I couldn't care less about re-usable code. By the time I get it working I have my answer and am never going back. As for Python. Where in Hell can I find a manual? As far as I can tell all of the subroutines of interest are documented only on the web and I spend more time that I have available to find anything. Programming Perl has it all in the book. I need a new copy because the pages are wearing out. X-code gives me the same feelings. If I, Apple, haven't provided a way to do what you want you probably can't do it. My life has been doing things that the previous programmers haven't thought about. Perhaps that's why I have written more assembly than compiler code. And yes. If you have a perl script that works on a file that is opened in BBEdit you can execute it with a line in another window containing a worksheet. When the script quits, BBEdit will reload the altered file from disk. It's a practical way to sort things and add stuff you might not be able to do with a filter. I use that technique for working with wirelists and signals for printed circuit boards. The biggest problem there is that some technical hardware demands both 0A and 0D lineends for separate interpretations in the same file and BBEdit doesn't support that except within its own worksheets. -- --> A fair tax is one that you pay but I don't <-- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BBEdit Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/bbedit?hl=en If you have a specific feature request or would like to report a suspected (or confirmed) problem with the software, please email to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" rather than posting to the group. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
