* Greg Cope ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [001213 11:19]:
> Appologies if I am butting in - but what you apppear to say here is that
> you are using JAVA because its sex / marketdriods know of it, yet perl
> would be the quicker (and hence cheaper solution ?). Surley for this
> reason you should use perl and persuade the PBH of the cost benefit here
> ?
Perl isn't always the quicker solution, and some would argue that in
the big scheme of things it might not even be the cheapest
solution. (Perl programmers aren't easy to find, although IMO if you
get a smart programmer with good experience he/she can pick it up
quickly.)
Technology doesn't exist in a vacuum. Every decision we make as
programmers doesn't just affect us, particularly in companies where
technology is a product. The people who sell the product, the people
who support the product, among others -- all these folks have no idea
what Perl is. They know what Visual Basic is, they know what Java is
(or they think they do).
I would love to be able to convince each and every one of these people
that Perl is better than Java and we should use it for our web-based
projects. That's simply not going to happen.
Does that mean they're "marketdroids"? Not necessarily -- they just
want to do their jobs. In their view, Perl makes that harder because
it's a hurdle (of many) they have to jump when selling the product.
> This has hit on a point - in that may people choose Java over Perl
> because its sexier, which becomes self forfilling, unless we (the perl
> community) persaude people that (mod_)perl is sexy....
Absolutely. I continue to argue for Perl wherever possible -- I'm in
charge of building the intranet, which simply has to work, and I'm
using mod_perl (among other things) to do the job. And if people ask
me how the site works I'll be able to more effectively evangelize for
mod_perl -- I'd be coming from a much different position than if I
were simply arguing one language (or technology) against another.
Chris
--
Chris Winters ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.
