> -----Original Message----- > From: Andrew Rodland [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 1:12 PM > To: The elegant MVC web framework > Subject: Re: [Catalyst] RFC: The paradox of choice in web development > > On Thursday 19 February 2009 09:12:36 am Matt Pitts wrote: > > In today's world of software that is cross-platform and OS agnostic > at > > its core, Perl 5 is showing its age. Still love it though. > > > > This isn't as much a Perl problem as it seems to be -- it's the rule > all > around that writing code that works on _everything but Windows_ is ten > times > easier than writing code that works on everything including Windows. > Perl is > just in a unique place to show this. In C, which is hardly more than a > portable(-ish) layer on top of assembler, and which has a small > standard > library, code isn't portable at all without significant work (and even > still, > Windows is usually the hardest target to hit.) In Java, portability is > considered paramount, so OS facilities are exposed through thick > compatibility layers or else not at all. Perl sits in the middle > ground. > Sufficiently "pure perl" code will run on a million and one platforms, > but at > the same time Perl was never afraid to expose OS facilities (like stat > or > SysV IPC) more or less directly, to allow more powerful code. This has > made > it easy to write code that, even though it doesn't use XS as all, is > platform-specific enough to crash and burn on windows. But if it's a > shortcoming in Perl, how do we fix it? By taking all the goodies away > from > the Unix folks so everyone has to write to the least common > denominator?
I don't see it as a shortcoming and I can't imagine Perl without its low-level goodies. I'm just saying that by not having a "common denominator" Perl is a harder adoption as a "platform" in today's world of cross-OS lifecycles. Maybe perl6 will provide that "common denominator" without sacrificing the low-level goodies. v/r -matt pitts _______________________________________________ List: [email protected] Listinfo: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/
