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Perl And Standards: Larry Rosler Interview

Posted by Hemos on from the good-reading dept.

Kaufmann writes: "In this interview with Joe Johnston (on O'Reilly's Perl.com), Larry Rosler (of HP, one of the people who helped put the 'ANSI' in 'ANSI C') shares his thoughts and advice on the value of standards, optimising Perl code, how Sun should handle Java, and programming in general. Will we ever see a Perl Language Subcommittee too?"

16 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Perl Standards by pornking · · Score: 5

    The OO paradigm promised to save the world of software engineering from bugs, complexity, and maintenance difficulties, but if the last 5 or 6 years are to be considered as indicators for future performance, it's not worth the hype.

    Think of it in terms of economics. People will write the most complex and featureful software they can that stays within the level of buggyness they can tolerate. Therefore, buggyness will tend to stay constant.

    Software is just as buggy now as it was 5 or 6 years ago, but is far more complex. I have personal experience with what can be done with OO to facilitate large complex systems which would be unthinkable without it.

    Therefore, people have taken advantage of the ability of OO to manage complexity and pushed the envelope with it. I don't consider this a bad thing.

    In addition, while I know Perl well and like it a lot, I would not dare use it for a large complex project.

    --
    pornking
  2. Why Perl would benefit from a standard by GGardner · · Score: 5

    According to this a group of hardy hackers are hard at work on a complete, from scratch, re-implementation of perl in C++. This reimplementation is supposed to be completely compatible with perl5. How can you guarantee compatibility without a specification? My guess is, in the same way that perl5 broke some obscure perl4 scripts, perl6 will break perl5 scripts - but without a spec, it's impossible to tell which of those breakages are bugs and which are features!

  3. Perl & VB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5
    >>Perl is superior to Visual Basic in every way imaginable.

    This is a completely stupid overgeneralization. VB is great at rapid prototyping of visual apps, and Perl sucks big at it.

  4. ActiveState--good for Perl... or not? by the+way · · Score: 3
    Q: My understanding is that Microsoft is 'embracing' ActiveState's Perl. They will be shipping Perl with their "Services for UNIX 2.0". Do you see any chance for Perl to compete on a Windows Platform as a replacement for Visual Basic? In particular, as application "glue"?

    LR: Why not? Perl is superior to Visual Basic in every way imaginable.

    Maybe a push from Microsoft will help overcome the barrier of acceptability that I focused on above.
    ActiveState's support of Perl has been increasingly bothering me other the last 12 months... am I just being paranoid?

    ActiveState's work in bringing Perl to Win32, and supporting OLE effectively, has been a very important piece of work (and done very well to). But having achieved that, they now seem to moving towards the embrace, extend, extinguish paradigm that some might have noticed from a certain other company.

    For instance:
    • Packages are distributed in PPM format, which as far as I can see are quite separated from the CPAN model which has been so effective for the Perl community
    • The Perl Power Contest (sponsored by ActiveState) requires the use of ActivePerl, rather than encouraging generic Perl solutions
    • With Gurusamy Sarathy (of ActiveState) looking after the Perl 5.6 release (and doing a great job, I might add), the 'official' binaries for both Win32 and Linux are now ActivePerl packages
    • They are partnering with M$oft in many projects. This just makes me uneasy, given M$'s history.
    I don't mean to put down the many good things ActiveState has done... But I do feel that the Perl community should be a little cautious about being pulled along by them. Other than the flexibility and power of the language, the things I most like about Perl are:
    • Scripts I write will run on almost any platform I come across, as long as I avoid direct system calls and avoid assumptions about file system structure
    • I know that if a problem has been tackled in Perl, it's solution will be available on CPAN. And furthermore, I know that I can use the CPAN module to install it with just one command.
    It seems to me that it would be all too easy to lose these benefits if the MS/ActiveState version of Perl forks much more from 'normal' Perl, and if ActiveState develops its own community around PPM rather than using CPAN.
    1. Re:ActiveState--good for Perl... or not? by Imperator · · Score: 3
      Packages are distributed in PPM format, which as far as I can see are quite separated from the CPAN model which has been so effective for the Perl community
      AFAIK CPAN still works for non-Win32 OSs, and there are no plans to close it. PPM is necessary for Win32 because CPAN packages come uncompiled. That's a problem on Win32, where most users don't have a compiler, never mind a POSIX environment.

      Personally, I don't lose too much sleep over ActiveState. The Perl community has always been very vocal and pro-Unix. If ActiveState wants to provide and support Perl binaries, more power to them. Though they employ several Perl developers, if they were to fork, they wouldn't be able to maintain the huge beast without the support of the community, and p5p would happily leave them behind.

      Microsoft is interested in Perl for several reasons:

      • VB sucks, and they know it. It may be easy to write code, but serious programmers don't like it. (Microsoft, which employs a surprisingly large number of programmers, is acutely aware of this.) Microsoft wants to position Perl as a supplement for VB. They could integrate it with IE if/when Mozilla does the same. They won't do this until they need to, because VB is a great way of getting people to create web sites that only work with IE, but they don't want to be caught off-guard when people start scripting sites in Perl and thus requiring Mozilla.
      • There are a large number of COTS and free software CGI scripts written in Perl. Many IIS sites would benefit from them. (They already do, but more Win32:: modules wouldn't hurt.)
      • Microsoft always wants more people coding in a language that works on their OSs. Not having Perl on Win32 would really hurt them for this reason.
      If Microsoft ever really wanted to EEE Perl, they wouldn't be subtle about it. They could easily buy ActiveState. But it really isn't worth it to them: Perl has a strong community organized around a single open source interpreter, and very few people are writing cross-platform applications with a scripting language. (They were afraid of Java not only for this reason, but also because it was tied to Sun.) Perl isn't a threat to Microsoft.
      --

      Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
  5. Isn't perl already standardized? by Xerithane · · Score: 3

    I could see if there was GPerl, and SunPerl and IBMPerl, and HPPerl.. but there really is only one person so isn't that the standard?
    Hmm.. oh well. If it makes people stop using system calls in perl scrips I'll be happy.. I especially like the 'script' ne 'program' part. Jon++
    And why the hell are the first 5-10 posts always flamebait/trolls/offtopic?


    nerdfarm.org

    --
    Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
  6. No need to standardize by DA_MAN_DA_MYTH · · Score: 4
    I like the fact that a lot of people don't know perl, We don't need to make perl widely accepted...

    COME ON PEOPLE WE NEED TO KEEP THINKING JOB SECURITY!!!

    I also think it's funny that Visual Perl is coming out... Who wants to bet it will be called VP++ because of all the M$^%t add ons, doesn't anyone remember what happened with VJ++? Jscript was the only microsoft clone of a language that actually provides cool functionality.

    True, we are all gonna die...

    --
    "It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
    1. Re:No need to standardize by lbrlove · · Score: 3

      That brings up a great point. I remember seeing the announcement of Visual Studio 7 incorporating Perl as a module at ActiveState. It looks like Microsoft is merely "allowing" this to be incorporated, and ActiveState is doing the work of building what amounts to a large plug-in.

      I wonder if this just entails the things that facilitate using the IDE (e.g. syntax highlighting, debugging, etc.), or proprietary code modules ala MFC (Microsoft Fried Chicken?). I further wonder if the guts of this big Visual Studio plug-in will themselves be open-source, or will they be grabbed by Microsoft. The arrangement is not terrifically clear if you just read the press release.

      Does anybody know the end game here?

      -L

    2. Re:No need to standardize by QBasic_Dude · · Score: 3

      The press release is here. ActiveState joined Microsoft's Visual Studio Integration Program. Visual Studio will contain a full-featured VB/VC++-like IDE. Visual Python will also be included.

  7. The push from Microsoft by yzorderex · · Score: 4

    is the best thing that could happen to Microsoft. With Win32-API and Win32-GUI both working nicely the OS is much more accessible and programmable. When Microsoft starts shipping Perl as a part of their standard distribution Perl will hit desktops worldwide and its usage will probably increase by an order of magnitude, Win-Win. (Dave Grove may have a heart attack though, Hi Dave! :-))

    --

    Just another perl hacker in Bangkok
  8. Perl Standards by RTMFD · · Score: 4

    An excellent article by a man who obviously calls 'em as he sees 'em. The OO paradigm promised to save the world of software engineering from bugs, complexity, and maintenance difficulties, but if the last 5 or 6 years are to be considered as indicators for future performance, it's not worth the hype. Although Perl is often accused of having a "bolted-on" OO interface, the base language is stable, supported, and widely used. Standards will only help to push its acceptance with the suits.

    Personally, I'd prefer to rely upon a language that delivers on the promise of "write once, run anywhere" :) In my experience, Perl does just that.

    Flames to /dev/null and let the language holy wars begin!

    1. Re:Perl Standards by jilles · · Score: 4

      "Maybe I still am missing the boat on OO, but at least I'm in good company. =)"

      Exactly, you just found another guy who missed the boat. This guy is smart enough to not completely dismiss python and java as useless but from the interview it is quite clear that you won't find him programming in either language (to put it mildly).

      For me OO is also something of the past. But at least I'm not stuck in the procedural/machine oriented paradigm of thirty years ago (when OO was the hot new thing). Personally, I find modern ideas such as aspect oriented programming, subject oriented programming or even intentional programming much more interesting.

      Perl is interesting in that sense because it is probably flexible enough to extend it to support either of those. On the other hand its syntax will probably always be a major obstacle for any serious adoption. Also performance is an issue (more than in Java) if you start doing serious development.

      Java at the moment is a much more mature language, perhaps due to the rigorous control of SUN over it. However, I think institutions like ISO mover too slow to keep up with the rapid developments. A standardized version of Java of three years ago would be close to useless to me. I suspect the same goes for perl. Like it or not, SUNs control of the Java language has prevented fragmentation and effectively caused it to be an industry standard with support for a large number of platforms.

      Finally a wise quote:
      "When you have a hammer, every problem seems a nail"

      I think this applies equally to either perl, vb, c(++), java, fill in you're favorite language. When developing device drivers stay away from visual basic. When developing e-commerce websites: don't bother using c. Also beware that languages and their accompanying libraries are under development. Two years ago Java was not good to do anything, now it is rapidly becoming the language of choice for number of domains (most notably web development).

      Don't use one hammer but educate yourself to be able to use the appropriate tools for the job at hand.

      --

      Jilles
  9. There is a perl standard by howard_wwtg · · Score: 4
    There is a Perl standard out there. Has been from the beginning.

    It is called Larry Wall.

  10. evaporating standards by Jafa · · Score: 5
    I thought his comment on evaporating standards was hilarious and sadly right on the mark! To quote:

    1980's paradigm: If it's worth implementing once, it's worth implementing twice.
    1990's paradigm: Ship the prototype!
    2000's paradigm: Ship the idea!

    Jason
  11. The inevitable result of perl standardization... by Shoeboy · · Score: 4

    The ANSI Perl standard recognizes that "there's more than 1 way to do it." Specifically, the standard outlines 123 ways to do it -- see appendix c. Additional methods are "implementation defined."
    --Shoeboy
    (former microserf)

  12. When I was a youngun... by pornking · · Score: 4


    Things were were always better in the old days, weren't they?

    • Remember how horribly everything broke when dos 4.0 came out?
    • Was Windows 95 really worse than windows3.1?
    • I think the Denver airport has been 5-6 years by now.
    • Every version of Netscape has been riddled with bugs.
    • Is Motif better than GTK?
    • X Windows is the defacto standard for unix displays. Is this really a good thing?
    • Do you actually like the design of NFS?
    • What about MacOS 6?

    What you have is a gut feeling that things used to be better because you only remember the good stuff. You remember how great Wing Commander was while forgetting that it took you 3 hours to figure out the config.sys and autoexec.bat for the boot disk.


    Now, the specific time frame being discussed is 5-6 years. Would you rather use Windows 95? As for unix, would you rather use SunOS? I remember some epic battles with xf86config under Linux. Was Netscape 1.1 really less buggy than Netscape 4.7?

    --
    pornking