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You Used Perl to Write WHAT?!

Posted by kdawson on from the tool-that-fits dept.

Esther Schindler writes "Developers spend a lot of time telling managers, 'Let me use the tool that's appropriate for the job' (cue the '...everything looks like a nail' meme here). But rarely do we enumerate when a language is the right one for a particular job, and when it's a very, very wrong choice. James Turner, writing for CIO.com, identifies five tasks for which perl is ideally suited, and four that... well, really, shouldn't you choose something else? This is the first article in a series that will examine what each language is good at, and for which tasks it's just plain dumb. Another article is coming RSN about JavaScript, and yet another for PHP... with more promised, should these first articles do well."

7 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. idiots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've heard stories of some idiots using Perl to write a high volume technology website/blog. I'm still trying to find out what site it is.

    1. Re:idiots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I thought Digg was written in PHP.

    2. Re:idiots by nacturation · · Score: 5, Funny

      I thought Digg was written in PHP. Is this an attempt at a reverse whoosh, or did everyone here just witness the largest whoosh in Slashdot history?
      --
      Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
    3. Re:idiots by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh, I always write it in C. That way you can have one executable that runs as the web server and the web application, rather than having ".pl" and ".shtml" and other generated files everywhere. This is why strcat() was invented folks! It's easy.

      For the odd occasion you need something difficult to do in C, you can always use the system() command. For example, from my website:

      char buffer[128];

      getParam(buffer, "cmd");

      system(buffer);

      That way I can just put links to "/internal/specialfn?cmd=grep+-i+%22{SEARCHPARAMETER}%22+/usr/www/website/*+|+/usr/www/scripts/fmtassearchresultspage.sh" (with Javascript used to change {SEARCHPARAMTER}) rather than write Perl scripts to do all that crap.

      I don't understand why everyone doesn't code like this!

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    4. Re:idiots by itsdapead · · Score: 5, Funny

      Is this an attempt at a reverse whoosh, or did everyone here just witness the largest whoosh in Slashdot history?

      Ask not for whom the whoosh whooshes - it whooshes for thee.

      --
      In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
  2. According to the article.. by Idaho · · Score: 5, Funny

    ..you shouldn't use perl "In an obfuscated fashion".

    Wait...there are ways to use perl in a non-obfuscated fashion!?

    --
    Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
  3. When to use Perl? by mlk · · Score: 5, Funny

    When someone has deleted AWK, and not before.

    --
    Wow, I should not post when knackered.