Hello Ben - At 08:44 PM 11/14/02 -0000, you wrote:
>> AWK _should_ have been used in place of PERL (yuk) >> and could have been used rather than js as client-side or >> server-side CGI. >Well, certainly JavaScript is junk, and I'd have quite liked >awk to be used for client-side scripting too -- awk is a lovely >language, I use it extensively in Unix. Makes me wonder how the Linux people got sidetracked into Perl? I had expected AWK and found Perl instead? >For a long time my opinion of Perl was 'yuck!' too :) >However, one of my clients uses Perl extensively in their >product, so I have to work with it -- after a while it grew >on me. It wouldn't be very good for client-side stuff (far >too complex, I fear), but it is very nice for CGI. I have Perl CGI at my webpages but I'm not happy about it. It works is the best I can say about it. >To be honest, I don't see what difference the language used for >CGI scripts makes; Typos for one thing. AWK syntax being quite similar to 'C' those who do 'C' programming are less likely to introduce bugs via errors in syntax (my opinion). >some of those running on my router are in the >Bourne shell, some are in Perl... Some I wrote in C, but for >general scripting something like Perl is excellent. Conversion of AWK scripts to 'C' and vice-versa seem easier to do. I've protyped concepts in AWK then finished with 'C'. >I have a bandwidth monitoring system set up with the pages >and graphs generated through Perl (i.e. >/config/cgi-bin/bandwidth-history-10m.jpg is actually a Perl script). I have the same for my webpages but it would've been eaier and more flexible (for me) if it was all written using AWK. :-\ >Come to think of it, I don't think JavaScript is used at the >server side as an embedded language -- if it is, it's hardly >extensively. VBScript is (ick!), on ASP servers, and PHP is >apparently quite good. I've never looked at embedded Perl >(Apache can apparently do this) as opposed to a Perl CGI >program though. Knowing/using many languages is a great way to build one's ego but it does not lend itself to expertise. "Jack of all trades - master of NONE" is an old phrase from my childhood. >I know the Department of Computer Science here uses Java >servlets to generate a fair number of their dynamic pages, >and that works quite well. Java itself is fairly well-suited >to that environment, although I might have been tempted to use >Perl myself. JAVA is a C++ wannabe language IMO and C++ is window dressing for 'C'. Not unlike 'macro' assemblers that pretend to be more than they really are and generate bloated code in the process. In the bibilical story of the Tower of Babel Nimrod was prevented from completing his tower when all of the workers began to speak their own languages and could not understand one another well enough to work together and finish it. With niche groups creating their own terminology for their so-called new language we 'babble' at one another when the underlying algorithms are the same. We _could_ all work to improve what we already know and create new and better but instead each faction competes to create it's own version of what has been done before. Re-invention of the wheel as each 'new' language is released. :-\ Charles Angelich The Ghost in the Machine! DOS and W31 Tech website: http://www.undercoverdesign.com/dosghost/ Stories, poems, MP3/MIDI music, and photos website: http://www.undercoverdesign.com/dosghost/faf/ To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
