Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
NOTE: use Perl; is on undef hiatus. You can read content, but you can't post it. More info will be forthcoming forthcomingly.

All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Why Ruby is prettier and Padre changes the Perl community 3 Comments More | Login | Reply /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More | Login | Reply
Loading... please wait.
  • What exactly are folk worried about?

    I've used perl for:

    Data munging

    GUI's

    Real-time, high availability, telecomms apps

    One-off parsers many & various

    Simulations & customer demos

    Web-services & clients

    Code-generation

    Fun

    & so on

    Perl is admirably fit for any soft-dev task you have in mind, subject to performance constraints in certain situations. It may not be a *perfect* fit in all contexts but then again expectation to the contrary is probably not reasonable.

    As for supposedly not being fit for

    • We need to rethink the installation of perl programs. Waiting for cpan to do its thing is wrong! Compare installing a perl program with installing a program on WIndows or OSX. Unless the install is as simple as these other methods perl will always have an image problem. Perl installs remind me of the scrolling text when booting up the old unix box, but worse because it's interactive. Sorry I don't have a fix for the problem. :)

      • For a while, I've had rattling around in my brain an idea for being able to do installations of Perl apps, from CPAN, with incredible flexibility.

        I've yet to come up with a simple "pitch" for the idea, but let me try to describe...

        First: Layouts

        Different systems have different conventions for where applications, pieces of applications, and other related files et al. are to go. One may want to comply with the LSB, the FHS, Debian's policies, or whatever layout Windows or Solaris may dictate. Perhaps an admin wants to use a Stow-style layout, or even something they've come up with custom!

        Next: Distributions

        Typically one desires to obtain and install a particular distribution of software or data, or *something*. There are different types of distributions one would want to install: libraries, frameworks, CLI apps, GUI apps, web apps, servers, etc, etc...

        Could it be possible to create an installation framework that can allow one to easily install any type of distribution with any type of layout and have the installed stuff Just Work(tm) while still allowing end-user customization of the process?

        I've made past attempts at trying to envision the best way to go about it, but a combination of lack of tuits, and a seeming lack of demand has kept me from really trying to tackle it. One thing I'm certain of is that it would require creating Yet Another Build System. In addition, for things to work properly, distribution authors would probably be required to parameterize a lot more things, ie. a Lot More Work.

        It's a dream, but hey, isn't that what code is made of? :-)

Stories, comments, journals, and other submissions on use Perl; are Copyright 1998-2006, their respective owners.