use Perl

• scalability (Score:3, Insightful)

  by gav (2710) on 2003.10.19 19:48 (#24983) Homepage Journal

  I'm sure my feelings about PHP are the same as a lot of PHP programmer's about Perl, you can probably build a decent web app in PHP but 95% of what I've seen is crap.

  To build something scalable you need both people that know what their doing and a toolset that doesn't hinder them. The first part of the equation is the most important one.

  For example, earlier this year I "fixed" a Java web app by re-writing it in Perl. It ran on 3 dedicated servers - 2 app servers and a DB server. It took a whole bunch of DB queries to render each page, so I wrote something that output static pages (the data changes perhaps once or twice a month). Now it runs on a single shared webserver. This doesn't mean that Perl is more scalable than Java, just that if you don't design a scalable solution from the start you'll have to throw a lot of money at the problem.

  Reply to This

  • Re:scalability (Score:1)

    by shiflett (3841)

    Actually, I don't think the general opinion of Perl in the PHP community is as poor as the general opinion of PHP in the Perl community. Some of this is warranted, but of course, much of it is not. In general, the Perl community is more advanced as well as more mature (I'm talking about the age of the community, not personality). This, by itself, leads to better code. Yes, there is a lot of bad PHP code, probably a higher proportion than bad Perl code. However, the top PHP developers can solve the same prob
• People Count! (Score:1)

  by chromatic (983)

  Things that cost money include hardware, software, human resources, and time.

  Should things like maintainability and robustness be taken into consideration?

  Yes. Smart people have been saying this for years. I develop better software faster in Perl than I do in Java. (Of course, I develop better software faster in Java than I do in C.)

  Relative productivity of a language is important. I think Jack wasn't quite ready to say that, but it's important to realize that ops-per-second isn't the be-all e
  • Re:People Count! (Score:1)

    by shiflett (3841)

    Yes. Smart people have been saying this for years. I develop better software faster in Perl than I do in Java. (Of course, I develop better software faster in Java than I do in C.)

    But when people attempt to compare the scalability of programming languages (which isn't a practice I am advocating), shouldn't they try to take an "all else being equal" perspective? I know that I should consider the skillset of my current (or at least potential) employees when choosing a solution, but if my goal is only to
    • Re:People Count! (Score:1)

      by chromatic (983)

      I don't see what value there'd be in such a comparison. I certainly don't work in an ideal world. The handwavy things that don't matter in purely academic comparisons have a way of actually mattering a great deal in practice.
      • Re:People Count! (Score:1)

        by shiflett (3841)

        I don't see what value there'd be in such a comparison.

        I said I wasn't advocating it. :-)

        I certainly don't work in an ideal world. The handwavy things that don't matter in purely academic comparisons have a way of actually mattering a great deal in practice.

        I agree completely, which I guess was part of my point. I generally dislike scalability being used as this paramount characteristic that determines whether a particular technology is "worthy."

        Because the true meaning of scalability doesn'
• linear is the best you're going to do (Score:1)

  by mary.poppins (3530)

  I don't see how you're ever going to better than linear, given that you have to do *something* for each user of your system, even if it's as simple as serving up a static page.