Good points everyone! And while this IS more of a beginners-cgi question, here's my two cents anyway...
Lately, I have myself have been re-evaluating my use of perl in a CGI context since, PHP is so ideally suited towards perl-like tasks and already has a vast library of prebuilt functions for everything from IMAP to Cybercash...and it offers a very simple interface to these functions and a relatively easy to grasp OO architecture. Oh yeah, and it's free. For many projects I *do* use PHP but there are still times when the shear elegence of Perl and it's "get the job done" attitude can't be beat (say, for building prototypes)... how sweet is it to be able to execute a regexp with two slashes? compare that with the preg_match() function in PHP or the lenghtly process in C# or VB.NET or Java for that matter. And since most CGI applications still revolve around lexical parsing, perl can't be beat in that regard... And the fact that CPAN has a module for just about anything... As someone mentioned earlier, Perl is designed to play well with others, even if it means taking a back-seat. This is really great when you've got a lot of old legacy systems that have all sorts of input/output mechanisms and nothing is standardized, and the original developers all quit four years ago and you've got to somehow bring everything together into one beautiful, slick, robust, secure, web-app. In three weeks. (Everybody's been there....) Finally, there's all the weird mind-bending stuff you can do with perl that involves rewriting the symbol tables, building your own interpreters, bending the rules in all sorts of directions, etc... which I haven't even begun to wrap my brain around but still totally fascinates me. And you never know when you'll need that sort of power in a web app. So the moral of the story is...use the right tool for the job/budget. I'm happy to be relatively comfortable with many platforms so that whatever challenge a project brings, I can use whatever tool is most appropriate. And even mix and match as someone mentioned before....use Perl for some parts, J2EE for others, and even .NET elsewhere, letting each do what it does well, and passing messages between the whole thing with SOAP. what a wonderful world. Anyway, thanks for reading... -Peter ps. I just realized that I didnt provide any clear examples of perl kicking-ass in an enterprise world, so I hope somebody else does ;-) -----Original Message----- From: Paul Kraus [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 8:08 AM To: Perl Subject: Perl Cgi/ Why? With ASP.net, MONO, and sun implication why would someone still use Perl for website design. This is not a flame but simply asking for advice. I use Perl for reports and linux/unix/windows scripting. However what is to gain by using it for the web over these other technologies? What are some of the things you guys use Perl to accomplish with your website and why do you use Perl? Paul Kraus Network Administrator PEL Supply Company 216.267.5775 Voice 216-267-6176 Fax www.pelsupply.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
