It is always a bad thing to make a claim without a reference. When one says a compiler is slow/fast (run time) there is always a lot of context that is important. For example, floating point operations, i/o, memory management, etc.
Re:Futher proof of the inevitability of Linux
on
Open Source Africa
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· Score: 1
The last time we saw a phenomena like this was in the immediate post-colonial era from the 1950s-1970s. Nationalist governments in Egypt, India, China and elsewhere stopped using imported products to spur industrial development at home.
Bad example. These countries are still 3rd world and stuck in profound poverty.
However I do remember the results of isolationism and protectionism, when in the 70's the US auto industry, protected from imports by import teriffs became complacent. Without significant competition the big 3, churned out flaming Pinto's and low quality cars that fell apart in 5 years or less.
I see the MS DOJ case as important because if MS is allowed to compete unfairly it is the same as protectionism. I have encountered many times the attitude amongst the general population that MS's and Intel's virtual monoply is good for the US since it allows the US to dominate the computer industry. Sorry wrong answer. The rest of the world will move on, and innovation will come from somewhere else and the US will play catch up again.
If anything history clearly shows that advancement, innovation and economic growth springs from an environment that is both free and fair.
Sure you can concoct your own set of standard string handling functions and implicit loop functions, but yours would look and behave different then mine and both would probably suffer in performance compared to Perl's built in functions. In fact, every C or Java programmer typically accumulates a set of of standard libraries functions to do simple things such as grep. Perl just puts them together in a nice neat package.
As far as prototypes go I have always failed to understand the value for all the trouble. If you use meaningful variable names the context is almost always clear. A language can never compensate for bad style or design.
And finally no one is suggesting Perl should replace all strong typed languages. As Larry often points out Perl is written is C and for good reasons. However, we are talking about Java and Java is finding it most important use as server side programming. Therefore I am suggesting that Perl compared to Java provides a significant productivity enhancement in that environment. IMHO well written Perl is faster to develop in, easier to understand, cheaper to maintain, and performance is often amazing.
What does terseness of syntax have to do with THINKing?
Plenty. Expressing a concept clearly in less words, paragraphs, or sentences encourages better and faster comprehension. That is why tech writing classes always preach keeping sentences down to 20 words or less. For example it is faster (and easier) to understand
@sub_array = grep/$pattern/, @array ;
then it is to mentally parse several lines of code in and a "for" loop.
Same is true with reg expression which often replaces dozens of lines of code. A reg exp almost always contains a single thought and if you take a page to express that thought it is harder to understand. Higher level code (such as Perl) results in code with lower complexity.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by named parameters. Are you refering to something like Perl's symbolic references ? Or can you achieve the same result with symbolic references ?
Java is simply too verbose. It takes 50 lines of java to do what Perl does in 10 lines. This is 10 lines of well written (not intentional compacted or expanded) code. Not sure about python, but I suspect that python is probably closer to Perl in this respect.
I work for the Navy and often employ Linux/Perl/Apache for intranet apps and to use it as a Samba server.
Recently, per a request by Linux today, I wrote a short article on my experience with using Open Source software in the Navy. Before I could release the article and had to run it by "legal". They came back and denied my request for publishing the article as it could be construed that the Navy was promoting or endorsing a product.
The following month I came across an article in "Government Computer News" that highlighted the grow use of NT at JPL. The article might have been written by MS propaganda department. So it is good to see someone up high come out and make some realistic comments concerning MS products.
O.K. Sorry for being too general. Yes, Perl supports most OOP constructs and Paradigms. If you take the time to look Perl supports data encapsulation, polymorphism, inheritance, etc. There are difference in its support for OOP versus C++ or Java. Perl does not force you one way or another, but lets the programmer decide on the best approach.
The fact that the community has accomplished one of several OOP goals in a limited and non-OOP way, is kind of, well, totally fucking irrelevant.
Limited is your uninformed judgement and not the term I would use and it is not irrelevant. BTW, most of the modules on CPAN are written with a OO interface. Is OOP just an end or a means to an end.
As far as writting "real" code with Perl. Yes, I have been involved in several significant projects using Perl that was not cobbling together "real" C code. I have used Perl to replace "real" C++ code (Firewire driver) as was mentioned in a previous post in this thread. I have used Perl to develop several data acquistion systems and monitoring system complete with a browser based operator interface. I have implemented several custom e-commerce sites, FAQ generators, web based document logs, etc.
Could these have been done in C or C++ ? Sure at a much greater cost. Are they maintainable ? Yes. Maintainability is more a matter of design, style, and skill then a side-effect of a language or even a design approach (OO versus or non-OO).
Other people using Perl ? Well lets see I guess we are posting to one. Please point me to the Java or C++ equivalent. But, I am sure you consider this to be trival toy script.
True, but a very efficient interperted language. Somewere I have link to a study done by Kernahan (spelling ?) comparing perl performance to C, C++, Java and others. For some operations Perl even bested C++ and C and almost always bested Java. Yes, I know Java performance has increased significantly lately.
Do you write OS kernels with it? Text editors? Language interpreters? Compilers?
No, and nobody has suggested such, that is why Perl itself is written in C.
Do you write anything that can't be cobbled together by gluing together modules that a competent programmer wrote in C or C++?
Yes, all the time. In fact, one could consider Perl as a gluing of C modules for use at a higher level.
Can you do proper OOP with it, or does it just have a fake toy "class" thing like Visual Basic has?
I suppose that depends on your definition on "Proper" OOP. Check out CPAN which is probably the largest collection of freely reusable source code in existance. Remember one the primary objectives if OOP is software reuse. On that account Perl delivers.
And rememeber few "Perl Zealots" recommend Perl for everything. They are Zealots because that for a sizeable portion of the problems they encounter in their programming careers, they find Perl to be an appropiate tool.
Try educating yourself before making an Ass out of yourself.
I do not often respond to obvious flame bait, but try adding some reasoning (and examples) to your broad-brush sweeping criticism.
As a long time C programmer I jumped with joy when I encountered Perl. I found that my personal collection of high-level library functions that I had maintained for years, such as:
- String manipulation functions. - Implicit loop functions such as grep, map. - Hashes. - Linked lists (dynamic arrays).
had already been done (and much better) by Larry and put into a package called Perl. Performance was excellent and even exceeded custom C libraries. Not to mention all the software available for reuse such as Socket, POP3, CGI, FTP, TELNET, Date Manip, Image modules.
I just finished writing a module to communication to industrial data acquisition units (Opto22 Brain Modules) using IEEE 1394 Firewire protocol. The company provided poorly programmed C++ drivers, which I replaced with a Perl Module, building on the excellent IO:Socket module. I completed the driver within 5 working days and achieved a 4 to 1 code reduction. I never needed to drop down to C for any reason, Perl gave me the ability to twiddle bits and even do a big-endian to little-endian byte swap in two lines of code !
I have found Perl to be an excellent tool in my toolbox and have found many occasions where it was an excellent choice for the problem at hand. Coming from a UNIX background I find it wonderfully designed and intuitive. My hat off to Larry and others for making Perl freely available. To those who have been pissed off by Tom, grow some thicker skin.
I have several accounts with Pair and their turn around on tech issues are several days not hours. There is no phone support. I agree they are technically competent however if you have an issue you better not be in a hurry and if it is the weekend your are SOL.
I work for Department of the Navy and we also use Perl for mission critical applications.
I recently deployed a 70 channel temperature acquisition system written in Perl running on Linux in conjuction with Apache. This system was deployed at 500 ft of depth for over 3 months and was not physically accessible during this time. A BSOD would have cost 30k to access. Perl was a joy to work with and the project was developed in the space of 2 weeks.
Thanks for pointing that out... Perl and Python
on
Java Success Stories
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· Score: 1
I recently ported a Perl based Order Manager server app, consisting of 2.7k LOC, from a UNIX to a win98 machine.
I installed Apache on the Win98 machine and several required modules such as Time::HiRes, and CGI.pm. Then changed 3 hardcoded url statements in the code and replaced the #!/usr/local/perl to #!c:/tools/perl in each file and was done.
Maybe someday freedom will exist without the need to protect and sustain it. Fortunately in the US and other enlightened nations the military is subservient to a freely elected government.
The benchmarks I have seen comparing Java Servlets with mod_perl show a similar results - Perl faster at some things and Java faster others - depending on the platform and task.
What more important for myself and my customers is program productivity. As an illustration:
Hello world in Java: import java.io.*; import java.util.*;
public void doGet ( HttpServletRequest request,// form variables, etc. HttpServletResponse response )// methods for providing output throws ServletException, IOException { // set content type of HTTP header response.setContentType ( "text/html" );
// create an output object and send our response PrintWriter out = response.getWriter (); out.println ( "Hello World\n" + "Hello World!" ); out.close (); } }
Hello world in Perl #!/usr/local/bin/perl print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "Hello World\n"; print "Hello World!";
In practice I use html templates with Perl such as: #!/usr/local/bin/perl
where the function process_template reads in the argument file and replaces the embedded strings "$title$" and "$body_str$" with the values of the variables. This way the code is seperate from the presentation and a single code base can be used to call several different sets of templates and provide a different look and feel per template set.
Corporations and online commerce are one of the things that keeps the modern Internet up and running (and allows you to read services like Slashdot.) Entities like search engines have got to start giving preferential treatment to corporations if they expect to continue to be allowed to operate.
What a pile of flame bait. There is no such thing as Corporate sponsership of web. Some how much to you suppose Leanardo pays to underwrite the web.
You should drop a hint that you're being sarcastic... You are right ?
My wife has a hot sauce store "Sam McGees" So, by your line of reasoning, if her store does not popup number 1 on all the Search Engines for the key phase "Sam McGees" then by golly I get sue not only those lame Robert Service sites but each search engine also.
"Once you've got it up, what would you use to travel horizontally?" Mills asks.
Thrusters?
... "Too inelegant. Try a flywheel to play off angular momentum," he suggests...
What the heck is this guy been smoking. If you can produce linear momentum (mv) from a flywheel to "play off" angular momentum you would not really need his anti-gravity device - just point your thrusters up and... to infinity and beyond, cowboy.
I have written Server Apps from the ground up in Perl consisting of several thousands lines of Perl (~5000) and did not encounter the same issues you did. Perls modules provide good encapsulation if you use them correctly and data scope is up to you to define.
The thing I like about Perl is that it gives you _freedom_. You just need to have discpline for large scale projects. (not really different then in any other language).
Reg Exp are condensed code and I find if used properly they increase code readability since a single line of reg exp contains a complete thought in one concise statement - instead of spreading the purpose over several loops of code.
Slashdot Mirror
Ya but the Mozilla project is throwing in all the extra crap too. I want just the browser and make it functional, configurable with a low bug count.
Warmi
It is always a bad thing to make a claim without a reference. When one says a compiler is slow/fast (run time) there is always a lot of context that is important. For example, floating point operations, i/o, memory management, etc.
The last time we saw a phenomena like this was in the immediate post-colonial era from the 1950s-1970s. Nationalist governments in Egypt, India, China and elsewhere stopped using imported products to spur industrial development at home.
Bad example. These countries are still 3rd world and stuck in profound poverty.
However I do remember the results of isolationism and protectionism, when in the 70's the US auto industry, protected from imports by import teriffs became complacent. Without significant competition the big 3, churned out flaming Pinto's and low quality cars that fell apart in 5 years or less.
I see the MS DOJ case as important because if MS is allowed to compete unfairly it is the same as protectionism. I have encountered many times the attitude amongst the general population that MS's and Intel's virtual monoply is good for the US since it allows the US to dominate the computer industry. Sorry wrong answer. The rest of the world will move on, and innovation will come from somewhere else and the US will play catch up again.
If anything history clearly shows that advancement, innovation and economic growth springs from an environment that is both free and fair.
What a minute I am way off topic. Oh well.
Sure you can concoct your own set of standard string handling functions and implicit loop functions, but yours would look and behave different then mine and both would probably suffer in performance compared to Perl's built in functions. In fact, every C or Java programmer typically accumulates a set of of standard libraries functions to do simple things such as grep. Perl just puts them together in a nice neat package.
As far as prototypes go I have always failed to understand the value for all the trouble. If you use meaningful variable names the context is almost always clear. A language can never compensate for bad style or design.
And finally no one is suggesting Perl should replace all strong typed languages. As Larry often points out Perl is written is C and for good reasons. However, we are talking about Java and Java is finding it most important use as server side programming. Therefore I am suggesting that Perl compared to Java provides a significant productivity enhancement in that environment. IMHO well written Perl is faster to develop in, easier to understand, cheaper to maintain, and performance is often amazing.
What does terseness of syntax have to do with THINKing?
/$pattern/, @array ;
Plenty. Expressing a concept clearly in less words, paragraphs, or sentences encourages better and faster comprehension. That is why tech writing classes always preach keeping sentences down to 20 words or less. For example it is faster (and easier) to understand
@sub_array = grep
then it is to mentally parse several lines of code in and a "for" loop.
Same is true with reg expression which often replaces dozens of lines of code. A reg exp almost always contains a single thought and if you take a page to express that thought it is harder to understand. Higher level code (such as Perl) results in code with lower complexity.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by named parameters. Are you refering to something like Perl's symbolic references ? Or can you achieve the same result with symbolic references ?
Java is simply too verbose. It takes 50 lines of java to do what Perl does in 10 lines. This is 10 lines of well written (not intentional compacted or expanded) code. Not sure about python, but I suspect that python is probably closer to Perl in this respect.
I work for the Navy and often employ Linux/Perl/Apache for intranet apps and to use it as a Samba server.
Recently, per a request by Linux today, I wrote a short article on my experience with using Open Source software in the Navy. Before I could release the article and had to run it by "legal". They came back and denied my request for publishing the article as it could be construed that the Navy was promoting or endorsing a product.
The following month I came across an article in "Government Computer News" that highlighted the grow use of NT at JPL. The article might have been written by MS propaganda department. So it is good to see someone up high come out and make some realistic comments concerning MS products.
Katz is overly dramatic
Katz is an irritation
Katz is a Troll
O.K. Sorry for being too general. Yes, Perl supports most OOP constructs and Paradigms. If you take the time to look Perl supports data encapsulation, polymorphism, inheritance, etc. There are difference in its support for OOP versus C++ or Java. Perl does not force you one way or another, but lets the programmer decide on the best approach.
The fact that the community has accomplished one of several OOP goals in a limited and non-OOP way, is kind of, well, totally fucking irrelevant.
Limited is your uninformed judgement and not the term I would use and it is not irrelevant. BTW, most of the modules on CPAN are written with a OO interface. Is OOP just an end or a means to an end.
As far as writting "real" code with Perl. Yes, I have been involved in several significant projects using Perl that was not cobbling together "real" C code. I have used Perl to replace "real" C++ code (Firewire driver) as was mentioned in a previous post in this thread. I have used Perl to develop several data acquistion systems and monitoring system complete with a browser based operator interface. I have implemented several custom e-commerce sites, FAQ generators, web based document logs, etc.
Could these have been done in C or C++ ? Sure at a much greater cost. Are they maintainable ? Yes. Maintainability is more a matter of design, style, and skill then a side-effect of a language or even a design approach (OO versus or non-OO).
Other people using Perl ? Well lets see I guess we are posting to one. Please point me to the Java or C++ equivalent. But, I am sure you consider this to be trival toy script.
It's an interpreted language.
True, but a very efficient interperted language. Somewere I have link to a study done by Kernahan (spelling ?) comparing perl performance to C, C++, Java and others. For some operations Perl even bested C++ and C and almost always bested Java. Yes, I know Java performance has increased significantly lately.
Do you write OS kernels with it? Text editors? Language interpreters? Compilers?
No, and nobody has suggested such, that is why Perl itself is written in C.
Do you write anything that can't be cobbled together by gluing together modules that a competent programmer wrote in C or C++?
Yes, all the time. In fact, one could consider Perl as a gluing of C modules for use at a higher level.
Can you do proper OOP with it, or does it just have a fake toy "class" thing like Visual Basic has?
I suppose that depends on your definition on "Proper" OOP. Check out CPAN which is probably the largest collection of freely reusable source code in existance. Remember one the primary objectives if OOP is software reuse. On that account Perl delivers.
And rememeber few "Perl Zealots" recommend Perl for everything. They are Zealots because that for a sizeable portion of the problems they encounter in their programming careers, they find Perl to be an appropiate tool.
Try educating yourself before making an Ass out of yourself.
I do not often respond to obvious flame bait, but try adding some reasoning (and examples) to your broad-brush sweeping criticism.
As a long time C programmer I jumped with joy when I encountered Perl. I found that my personal collection of high-level library functions that I had maintained for years, such as:
- String manipulation functions.
- Implicit loop functions such as grep, map.
- Hashes.
- Linked lists (dynamic arrays).
had already been done (and much better) by Larry and put into a package called Perl. Performance was excellent and even exceeded custom C libraries. Not to mention all the software available for reuse such as Socket, POP3, CGI, FTP, TELNET, Date Manip, Image modules.
I just finished writing a module to communication to industrial data acquisition units (Opto22 Brain Modules) using IEEE 1394 Firewire protocol. The company provided poorly programmed C++ drivers, which I replaced with a Perl Module, building on the excellent IO:Socket module. I completed the driver within 5 working days and achieved a 4 to 1 code reduction. I never needed to drop down to C for any reason, Perl gave me the ability to twiddle bits and even do a big-endian to little-endian byte swap in two lines of code !
I have found Perl to be an excellent tool in my toolbox and have found many occasions where it was an excellent choice for the problem at hand. Coming from a UNIX background I find it wonderfully designed and intuitive. My hat off to Larry and others for making Perl freely available. To those who have been pissed off by Tom, grow some thicker skin.
I have several accounts with Pair and their turn around on tech issues are several days not hours. There is no phone support. I agree they are technically competent however if you have an issue you better not be in a hurry and if it is the weekend your are SOL.
I work for Department of the Navy and we also use Perl for mission critical applications.
I recently deployed a 70 channel temperature acquisition system written in Perl running on Linux in conjuction with Apache. This system was deployed at 500 ft of depth for over 3 months and was not physically accessible during this time. A BSOD would have cost 30k to access. Perl was a joy to work with and the project was developed in the space of 2 weeks.
I recently ported a Perl based Order Manager server app, consisting of 2.7k LOC, from a UNIX to a win98 machine.
I installed Apache on the Win98 machine and several required modules such as Time::HiRes, and CGI.pm. Then changed 3 hardcoded url statements in the code and replaced the #!/usr/local/perl to #!c:/tools/perl in each file and was done.
That's pretty close to WORA IMHO.
Since you're proud of your accomplishment why don't give the url and list those of your alleged competition.
Then let an unbiased opinion draw conclusions.
In other words don't make empty claims...
Maybe someday freedom will exist without the need to protect and sustain it. Fortunately in the US and other enlightened nations the military is subservient to a freely elected government.
The benchmarks I have seen comparing Java Servlets with mod_perl show a similar results - Perl faster at some things and Java faster others - depending on the platform and task.
// form variables, etc. // methods for providing output
// set content type of HTTP header
// create an output object and send our response
What more important for myself and my customers is program productivity. As an illustration:
Hello world in Java:
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
public class HelloWorld extends HttpServlet {
public void doGet (
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response )
throws ServletException, IOException {
response.setContentType ( "text/html" );
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter ();
out.println ( "Hello World\n" +
"Hello World!" );
out.close ();
}
}
Hello world in Perl
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "Hello World\n";
print "Hello World!";
In practice I use html templates with Perl such as:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
$title = "Hello World";
$body_str = "Hello World!";
process_template("hello_world_blue.html");
where the function process_template reads in the argument file and replaces the embedded strings "$title$" and "$body_str$" with the values of the variables. This way the code is seperate from the presentation and a single code base can be used to call several different sets of templates and provide a different look and feel per template set.
Corporations and online commerce are one of the things that keeps the modern Internet up and running (and allows you to read services like Slashdot.) Entities like search engines have got to start giving preferential treatment to corporations if they expect to continue to be allowed to operate.
What a pile of flame bait. There is no such thing as Corporate sponsership of web. Some how much to you suppose Leanardo pays to underwrite the web.
You should drop a hint that you're being sarcastic... You are right ?
My wife has a hot sauce store "Sam McGees" So, by your line of reasoning, if her store does not popup number 1 on all the Search Engines for the key phase "Sam McGees" then by golly I get sue not only those lame Robert Service sites but each search engine also.
"Once you've got it up, what would you use to travel horizontally?" Mills asks.
...
... to infinity and beyond, cowboy.
Thrusters?
... "Too inelegant. Try a flywheel to play off angular momentum," he suggests
What the heck is this guy been smoking. If you can produce linear momentum (mv) from a flywheel to "play off" angular momentum you would not really need his anti-gravity device - just point your thrusters up and
Well, there is always more than one way to do it...
Well, I think it is possible to write Word/Excell etc macros in Perlscript.
Novel... are you joking Its called a primary key query.... About as novel as a door knob
I have written Server Apps from the ground up in Perl consisting of several thousands lines of Perl (~5000) and did not encounter the same issues you did. Perls modules provide good encapsulation if you use them correctly and data scope is up to you to define.
The thing I like about Perl is that it gives you _freedom_. You just need to have discpline for large scale projects. (not really different then in any other language).
Reg Exp are condensed code and I find if used properly they increase code readability since a single line of reg exp contains a complete thought in one concise statement - instead of spreading the purpose over several loops of code.
I am going to try to impress my coworkers by using metric time from now on... "I will be ready in 3 Kiloseconds"