use Perl

• What do you really want? (Score:1)

  by brian_d_foy (44)

  You remove complexity by redefining the problem, abandoning unnecessary constraints, or fixing the root of the problem. Most of that means figuring out the actual desired end state rather than the perceived one. For instance, "I want a list of customers" instead of "I want an HTML table generated dynamically from our legacy database". In the military we call this "commander's intent"---things are going to go to crap and rather than sticking to the plan, we improvise, adapt, and overcome to acheive the co
  • Re:What do you really want? (Score:1)

    by jplindstrom (594)

    Great answer, it got me thinking.
    
    "You remove complexity by redefining the problem"
    
    This I like. A lot.
    
    "Geniuses remove it"
    
    I guess one way of removing complexity is to just swipe it under the rug--data hiding and modular design. By definition you hide complexity and provide a simpler way of looking at things.
    
    • Re:What do you really want? (Score:1)

      by brian_d_foy (44)

      Sweeping it under the rug is the pragmatist approach---that's just dealing with it. Abstraction means the complexity is still there even though it is hidden.
      
      My DBI example may have been ungood, but then again, you can completely remove the database server from the problem---not just in abstraction but also in reality. You can use DBI with flat files (just like we do in Stonehenge's DBI course where we write a Zork text adventure game starting with flat files and DBI, then at the end convert it to mysql w
• a bigger rug (Score:1)

  by educated_foo (3106)

  So how do you remove complexity?

  See previous journal entry. (was that deliberate?)

  /s
  • Re:a bigger rug (Score:1)

    by jplindstrom (594)

    Not really deliberate, no :)
    
    It's an interesting angle, but I think writing the same thing in Perl is rather a more efficient way of managing the same amount of complexity.
    
    But the custom-vs-standard-protocol issue can be an example of implementation complexity being removed by slightly redefining the problem (as mentioned above).
    
    In another project, I was to write a server providing log reports. The initial (bad) idea, which I managed to veto, was to call this from an ASP application using some kind of cus