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Yet Another Perl Conference - Canada
minaguib writes "For anyone interested in Perl, Yet Another Perl Conference is coming to Ottawa, Canada May 15th and 16th. Pre-Registration is now open and the calendar is not completely finalized, as they are still accepting presenter entries. This is a great way to get involved either as a presenter or an attendee."
Ahh, yet another anti-Perl activist has realized his world is crumbling!
not only is something fun finally coming to my little ol' town, but its coming to my univeristy too :D
I program in Commodore BASIC V2.
Seastead this.
Yet another post about yet another perl conference.
My question, however, is what are the strengths of Perl? And is it well suited for manipulating information in a database?
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
True but doing OO in a language that supports OO. (eg. Java or even Perl) is easier and makes for more readable code.
Also when you do OO in a non OO language you are enforcing the OO only through convention. If someone else works on your code they can make a real mess by breaking encapsulation and other such non-OO practises
What can I say - the above title is clearly needed and has a fantastic sales oppotunity waiting several times a year.
You could do that in assembly, also. OOP is about ease of use and maintenance.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Shoot. How the hell do we all get to Canada and back when half of all Perl developer population are on green cards. God dam mother----s!
I suggest you read Slashdot
Wow, great example of how slashdot moderation works.
TODO: Something witty here...
perl is not just a web language. what you say is very true for web based stuff. however, as far as scripting is concerned for system administration and just "having fun" you can't beat it. there are many things i don't agree with in the perl world but all in all it's great.
I write code.
heh, obviously some strange new definition of the word "works" I was previously unfamiliar with.
in London, Ontario, Canada that I can afford? MacWorld London anyone?
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
I smell a marketing scheme. According to yapc.ca, the only scheduled training sessions are from employees of ExitCertified, an IT training company. Conveniently, ExitCertified is also in Ottawa. Further, why would I fly to a conference where they're still looking for speakers *two months* out? All they have are "Dick Hardt, founder of ActiveState" and two ExitCertified guys. If you want a truly amazing training/networking/fun experience, try a GeekCruise. I went on Linux Lunacy II in the Caribbean and hung out with Linus, Guido van Roosum (sp; invented Python), and Eric S. Raymond.
While all of you perl developers are here in the great white north, why not enjoy some of famous beer, and have a quick chance to check out our famous igloos, and our great Parliment buildings made of ice( Like your white house eccept ours doesn't need to be painted, it get painted daily by Mr. Winter)
Tragek
Canada is a Perl conference?
That would explain so many things on so many levels.
I wonder what the Perl syntax for "... eh?" is...
Real men code in binary.
Ease of use. After about a day I had an excellent understanding of both PHP and SQL. I was able to get a stable, useable and presentable website up within 24 hours of reading the basics of PHP. Learning Perl took me weeks and I'm still not even as good with it as I am with PHP. I would definitely not recommend anyone new to programming begin with Perl.
Personally, I wouldn't recommend any language that is meant for programming for a specific medium (and do not provide the argument that PHP can be used for non-web scripting -- that's just ludicrous) to be a good idea. You lose a lot of core knowledge while learning a language that is meant for that.
After all, would you really want to teach someone 'programming' by giving them a PL/SQL manual? I think not.
The OO of PHP is excellent. In my experience, it rivals Smalltalk. We all know that Perl's OO still needs work (whether or not OO is all that great is another discussion.) Hopefully Perl will be patched up so it supports such must-have OO features like introspection, reflection, self-replication and ontological data-points.
Yes, the OO in PERL is horrible. But, OO is a design methodology, one which is supported (or mandated) by some languages. For instance, take a look at the berkeley DB code. It's very OO, and pure C.
Hell, it's easy to write procedural Java, too.
Outstanding database support. PHP supports virtually every DB under the sun (although Berkeley DB is missing, oddly enough.) Perl seems limited to MySQL and PostgreSQL, and its really a kludge for the later. I've heard that this will be fixed in upcoming versions of Perl though.
Take another look. Tim Bunce, creator of DBI for perl (DataBase Interface), wrote the DBD::Oracle driver -- IIRC, this was the first DBD for DBI, which makes your point moot.
In our shop, we use Berkeley DB and Oracle, and a very minor touch of Pg and MySQL. Almost all of this is done w/ PERL.
Speed. PHP is one of the fastest languages I've ever used. While it won't be replacing assembly or C, its definitely faster than Perl in almost every case, particularly in regex which has long been Perl's strongest point. I'm sure there are cases where Perl is equal to PHP, but I can't think of any at the moment.
Do a search for 'doug bagley's language shootout'. You'll find that PHP is a much harder sell after you read this. If you want to argue about interpreter startup, take a look at mod_perl for apache. They are very comparable.
Portability. I can take PHP code off my Linux box and plop it onto an IIS server, or even one of those new Macintosh servers and have it run without having to change a single line of code. Try doing this with Perl! Its as though it was written in assembly, Perl requires that much rewriting.
I have done this a few times, and never had a problem with it. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, just that I've never had that problem. Perl on IIS also supports COM, which means you can do quite a bit with it on the windows side. You can also script it just like PHP, mixed inside the HTML (you can do it on UNIX with embperl, AxKit, and I think mason).
Graphics. PHP comes with a nice little graphics library. While I wouldn't use its to code the new Doom (VB would be a better choice) its adequate for most web pages, and should be considered as a substitute for Flash for certain things. Perl lacks a graphics library of any kind.
GD. PerlMagick. I'm going to ignore the rest of your comment (as you obviously have no clue what performance means). I wouldn't use Perl to write Doom III, either.
Data Structures. Under PHP you can create any type of datastructure you need: Linked lists, binary trees, hash tables, queues, inverse Reiser-biased recursion trees, etc. Under Perl you're extremely limited in what you can do. This is because Perl isn't OO (so you can't create Node classes, for example, usefull in a linked list) and because it lacks pointers. Some of you may notice that PHP lacks pointers, but look deeper! Behind the scenes, hidden from the user pointers are used. Because of this, PHP can support complex data structures.
Um.... You are referring to references. If PHP uses real pointers in it's scripting, garbage-collection-based language I would be SERIOUSLY amazed.
Regardless, PERL supports these too, but who the hell needs linked lists in a language which has built-in structures? If you want good examples of how various trees work, check out Mastering Algorithms in PERL, or spend 20 minutes and figure them out yourself -- it's not that hard
On this though, one has to have intimate knowledge and experience with the PERL reference-counting GC to pull off queues and any form of circularly-linked structure without creating a lot of extra overhead.
Here are some reasons I prefer Perl over PHP:
Things I hate about both languages:
Why is it that whenever someone mentions Perl, everyone has to mention how superior insert favourite language is. Does everyone feel that threatened by Perl? Do that many people hate Perl that much?
I use Perl because it lets me get the job done with little or no hassle. I like the TMTOWTDI nature of Perl, and Perl had one of the best support communities out there. There is a huge public codebase that you can draw from. And if you are building websites, there is a plethora of application frameworks and templating languages to choose from (HTML::Mason, Apache::ASP, OpenInteract, CGI::Application, AxKit, Embperl, Apache::PageKit, Template Toolkit, HTML::Template just to name a few).
What really annoys me is most of the time the complaints made against Perl are completely unfounded (like the claims made by the parent post). If someone wants me to refute the complaints made about Perl in the parent post I can, but for now I'll just end my rant here...
If you haven't used Perl before, try it, it's good!
Please mod this back up -- this is a good discussion!
I haven't spent as much time as I'd like with Python... Although I'd like to. I don't think I could justify using it for web stuff, though. (Although the zope guys seem to have no problem with it)
I can't stand PHP. If I were to choose one thing, it would have to be auto-vivifying variables. Frankly, I don't need the language helping undermine the security of my applications.
I have found Pike to be an interesting place to fill the PERL gap where I would consider Python another contender. Pike is type-safe, or not, depending on how you write your application. The greatest thing is that you can specify multiple, specific types for a variable, and the VM will check it. Pike also beats the pants off all the above languages in terms of speed.
With mod_perl, I still think you can do more with the web than with PHP, even if it only takes a little longer.
Heh, I don't see why anybody is actually bothering to respond to this guy, writing out extremly long rebbutals to everything he says.
I mean look at his username it's eggtroll for pete's sake, and just the fact that he said doom 3 should be written in vb says something. As the other people have already said, he's merarly showing how the slashdot moderator works.
(also another note to moderators I've seen: if your replying to someone else's off topic post, then it's not an off-topic post, Thank you)
Yes, and because of that, she doesn't need to be Natalie Portman'ed, thankyouverymuch.
-russ
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
But then again, I could be wrong.
You sure that's not the right site for Hooty Linux?
Hooty rules! Ninnle sucks!
I'll bite. Plus I'll throw another contender into the ring even.
Before I begin, let me just clarify something. I'm not arguing that PHP is better than Perl in all cases. There is certainly still a use for Perl. Also, PHP isn't perfect but it does manage to fix many of the shortcomings I've had with Perl.
Same here, there are cases where PHP works better than JSP. Very small, quick and dirty web scripts come to mind.
Ease of use. After about a day I had an excellent understanding of both PHP and SQL. I was able to get a stable, useable and presentable website up within 24 hours of reading the basics of PHP. Learning Perl took me weeks and I'm still not even as good with it as I am with PHP. I would definitely not recommend anyone new to programming begin with Perl.
Power and ease of use, is very often at odds. This is not always the case, but very often that's the trade-off you get with languages. Deal with it. Perl, along with JSP and other application servers give you many ways to do what is *apparently* the same thing. For example in many cases you may be able to get away with using "|", "||", or "or" in exactly the same statement and get what is to you the same effect ( if you don't care about bitwise operation or presedence).
Nice to see you got your web application up and running so quickly. Now try to connection pooling ( php persistant connections are db specific, ldap and less popular dbs don't get it ), or any other optimizations where you optimize the generation or retrival of variables or other resources by limiting that operation to once per session.
Ever wonder why so many slashdoted sites say "max connections in mysql reached"? Because often every hit is creating and closing a connection to the database. It's difficult to do any session scope or application scope optimizations using PHP. Is there a variable you need once per user session? Tough, you have to get it from the DB each hit, or store it in the URL, eg.
The OO of PHP is excellent. In my experience, it rivals Smalltalk.
Java vs. PHP's OO. Hmmm.... Grap a design pattern textbook and try implementing any non trivial pattern in PHP. PHP OO is an afterthought, and it shows.
Outstanding database support. PHP supports virtually every DB under the sun (although Berkeley DB is missing, oddly enough.)
ODBC
Speed. PHP is one of the fastest languages I've ever used.
Hah! Try a real web application. There standard PHP engine does not have an opcode optimizer. Every hit to your site is compile. While most application servers come with opcode optimizations by default. Your site is compiled on startup or on the first hit only. Afterwards the in memory code is executed. Even if you use a PHP opcode optimizer, it would be interesting to see PHP vs Tomcat. My money's on Tomcat.
Portability.
JAVA. Nuff said. There's isn't 20 different dependent libraries at compile time, or realizing that you need to recompile PHP because you don't have PDF lib support built in. That's suppose to change soon, I hear, but until then.
Graphics
Java2D
Data Structures. Under PHP you can create any type of datastructure you need: Linked lists, binary trees, hash tables, queues, inverse Reiser-biased recursion trees, etc.
Check out java.util .
PHP alright, but isn't all that hot. I still use PHP for small scripts that few people use ( eg. scripts to add/del IMAP or LDAP users for instance which only a small number of admins use), but the truth is most application servers would eat its lunch.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
You must see me eat a donut. It's remarkable.
Click the link below.
Bowie J. Poag
Has been fixed in PHP and is now the default.
You can at least fake function overloading in perl
You can with PHP as well. PHP has function pointers, makes this easy.
No attempt at typing, at all.
That's a feature of both languages. They're just loosely typed languages. I suspect the reasoning is that scripts aren't suppose to be doing anything large and complex, so the auto typing should screw up anything, just guessing.
No ability to compile to any form of byte-code or machine-code
There are several opcode caches for PHP http://www.turcksoft.com/en/e_mmc.htm
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
YAPC is also coming to Boca Raton, Florida. Hopeful speakers should volunteer their time for lightning talks and general speech topics soon!
http://www.yapc.org/America/venue.shtml
They didn't list it on the "Seeing Boca Raton" section, but there are other things to do in the Boca area, such FLUX (Florida Linux Users eXchange - http://www.flux.org/) and the 2600 meeting (not to mention Sawgrass Mills Mall which is an attraction all it's own - just come on a friday night).
All you Americans can attend "half price" because of our sagging currency/exchange rate, while us "Canadians" can't afford to buy lunch there let alone travel.
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
And I was going to go as a sharpshooter on the roof, but this is an even better idea!
Python: syntactically significant white-space. Need I say more? I just can't get past this one. (Every few years I forget this one and think 'maybe I should look at this Python stuff again' - then I do, remember this, and am torn between nausea and laughter.)
PHP: I suppose if you need to mix code w/ html, this is as good or bad a way as any. But I don't do that (I have that luxury, I code by myself and needn't accomodate webmasturbators).
As others have said, web or non-web, the shortest path between 'need/want' and 'have' is often a perl script. Pretty much anything you want to do (and a lot that you would never even think of doing) is on CPAN.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Actually, PHP is REALLY Hot for database management and ready made packages. For a lot of web programmers that just want to deploy a professional websites (PHP Nuke, Gallery, JPGraph), a whole bunch of packages are out there for instant deploy (and for free). Python's whitespace coding also pissed me off to no end. I mean it's nice to use whitespace to help identify structure of a program, but to use it to determine the structure? Gimme a break.
Fucking moderators. It's not even new. Turn your brains on before giving out the "Interesting" points to stupid arguments from "eggtroll".
I agree with your assessment of CPAN. The range is pretty much unequaled anywhere. The python analog looks pretty weak in comparison. Still, there's only time in the way.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
I thought the 'trollish' intro would indicate to people I was asking a real question. In fact it's just waving a flag in front of bulls. Oh well..
I'd never heard of pike. I'm not sure if it's resemblance to C would be comfortable or confusing. The claim as to speed is interesting. The website is being very slow, though, so I haven't seen much.
And what's with the 4 letter 'P' words for languages these days? Back in my day, we had 'B', which begat 'C', and that was good enough for us!
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
perl -eh 'print "pass the poutine\n"'
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
Macintosh user's group... mugoo... sounds about right :)
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Ok, I know you're a troll, but *gak* Java?! I've just returned from 18 hours of solid Swing coding. *Shudder*. I'd do anything to be allowed to implement this in Perl/Qt.
In response to two responses to my responses (heh), I noticed that .... about 2 seconds after I hit submit. :)