[Brisbane-pm] Finally Got Some Success in Installing Perl Modules on Mac OS
Tony Obermeit
hey.you at mac.com
Sun Oct 7 13:22:38 PDT 2007
Martin
Glad to see you finally got some success with your installation
problem. It was similar problems that I experienced some years back
installing the dbi package on linux that started my looking for other
options to perl after having been a strong advocate of it for some
time. The other problem with perl is deployment of anything more
than a simple set of scripts can be problematic, especially compared
to the mechanism and standardization one gets with the .jar, .war
and .ear mechanisms available with java.
So, obviously I decided to switch from perl to Java for any
application other than simple scripts. Having made this switch some
7 years ago, where do I position perl / java. I answer this based on
a similar question put to randal at a recent Brisbane meeting. My
choice of language mostly depends on the complexity of the
application, most simply measured by lines of code.
If < 10 (or 20 at most) lines of code, any language is fine including
shell scripts of various persuasions
Over 10 lines up to 100 (or occasionally 200) lines of code, perl or
other scripting languages like groovy / python, etc but never shell
script. I refer to these as simple scripts.
Over 100 lines then I go for Java. If significant UI is involved,
particularly graphical, then all bets are off with java.
I still like perl for simple scripts but now favour groovy instead
which is partly reflective of my preference for java.
Learning java after knowing perl fairly well was very hard for me but
now I consider it well worth the effort. The package installation
issues you've mentioned just never happen with java and you don't
have to worry as much about breaking other scripts / applications if
you upgrade to new packages in java because it uses dynamic class
loading for a much more flexible arrangement than you have with
perl. Never have to fight with make as well.
I hope such comments aren't treated as unwelcome in this forum, I'm
sending them because I went through similar pain to what you did and
swore never again. Hearing your pain reminded me of the fact that I
don't have that pain any more. Yeah, I still use perl, I think it is
a great language but I consider it's appropriate scope to be far
narrower than I once did. I also think Java's scope is somewhat
narrower also than I once did.
Regards
Tony
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