[BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for?

[Derek Thomson]

Don.Simonetta at mincom.com wrote:
> 
> Good question Derek.
> The only "good" reason I can think of is the level of commercial support 
> for the technologies. 

Commercial support for Java is a bit of a non-sequitor. I've submitted 
quite a few bugs to Sun WRT the Swing toolkit that were never fixed, 
last I looked.

The reality is that Sun only have N people supporting Java, and I'm 
betting N is an order of magnitude smaller than the hordes that support 
Perl, based on my experience getting issues resolved with both.

You can also buy commercial support, if that helps with tick-a-box 
management, but I'd never imagine needing it ...

> I suppose its a bit like saying "why are you 
> buying a $200k Ferrari when you can build a faster car from a kit for 
> less than $50k". 

A slightly better analogy - "Why buy a Ferrari for $200K when you can 
have instantaneous matter transport for nothing?"

Answer: Because a Ferrari is "cool", even though it takes you much 
longer to get anywhere :)

Regards,
Derek.