[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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