On 18/02/2009, at 5:55 PM, Dave Rolsky wrote:
On Tue, 17 Feb 2009, bill hauck wrote:
I'm trying to put together a project to rewrite a job tracking
database currently running in FileMaker. The functionality and
scope of the job tracking system has changed so instead of throwing
more money in a proprietary, closed system that requires a costly
application on each desktop I'm suggesting writing it as a web
application with Perl & Catalyst. The only problem is that I've
been told we would have to use Java & Struts since it's our
"corporate standard" for web applications. Perl, ironically, is
used in quite a few places in the company, mainly in utility
scripts. However, since we don't have anyone whose job title is
"Perl developer" we can't use it for web applications.
This is hardly unreasonable.
I've worked at a number of smaller shops where we were developing a
Perl-based app. If a developer had decided that they wanted to throw
together some important tool in Java (or Python or Haskell or
Smalltalk or ...), that would have been problem.
The investment in a language is bigger than just the programmers,
even. You have build & deployment tools, automated testing setups
(you do, don't you? ;), sysadmin knowledge, packaging
infrastructure, and so on.
Some of that may be language-agnostic, but often a lot of it ties
into the language and its tools.
Once you've made that investment, it makes sense to stick with it.
Just because Catalyst and Perl are great tools for webapps doesn't
mean that they're the _right_ tool at your job.
Yes indeed. To balance that, management also need to work with the
idea that rules are not dogmatic but designed for practical purpose.
In my (academic - research and practical) experience, the larger the
organisation, the more likely they are to believe dogma is more
important than pragmatism, especially if you go through the official
IT channels. If you go through the unofficial channels this may
change, depending on the structure of the organisation, and the
quality of your unofficial channels.
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