[Columbus-pm] has anyone perused 'Higher Order Perl', on monks and gripes

J Alexander jalex at pobox.com
Thu Dec 1 21:20:32 PST 2005


First, my disclaimers - Perl is open source, module developers are likely not 
paid, the community is a little more democratic than .Net or Java, and I 
wouldn't be part of perl mongers if I didn't like it.  I do use perl some 
still for fun, but for work I use Java and most scripting can be done in 
shell easily enough.  Since java jdk 1.5 came out with regex support that 
rivals Perl's, I have dumped a lot of perl parsing code for a java version.
=)

Perl, as a language, is great.  I think my problem is that portability and 
maintenance of the Perl installation is a major pain the rear for me, even 
with the CPAN module or ppm in windows (although that does take care of many 
of my major issues - ppm).

Perl modules are to me like the general's chicken, "Because he puts an 
addictive chemical in his chicken that makes ya crave it fortnightly" (So, I 
Married an Axe Murderer, '93).   They are addictive and so helpful.  But they 
are disorganized and some report their version one way, others another way, 
and some don't report their version at all.  Some modules are unnessarily 
compiled in c/c++.  While this might buy performance, most of them don't 
compile reliably and rpms/pkgs aren't avail for everything.

.Net(the actual MS software, not the language) irritates me also because the 
language is okay/good but the MS implementation is a bloated infecting 
jumbled-of-piecemealed work that takes a buttload of time to install, 
probably won't uninstall (cleanly) and marks it's territory in as many places 
on your machine as it can (the infecting part).

I don't think Perl needs a VM specifically, but more modules/additions should 
have been pure-perl (in Perl, for Perl, no compiling needed).  Module 
contributors aren't frequently evaluated or really accountable, (recent 
thread on perlmonks.org with some intelligent discussion on this).  Modules 
shouldn't have to go to the system libraries, or depend on 'expect' to be 
installed to use perl-expect.  This destroys portability.

I want something that runs on linux and windows, mac, etc.  I spend most of my 
effort in Java nowadays because of this.  I keep toying with the idea of a 
perl2class application that will (miraculously) dump a Perl script and all of 
it's C/C++ dependent modules and junk to a single .class file.  Since I don't 
see how that could work, I just whine. =)

I like perl a lot, but I would rather use it like I use Jython/Groovy in Java.  
Even then, I am getting hooked on Groovy and may just use that instead of 
perl.</rant>

-Jason

On Wednesday 30 November 2005 12:10, you wrote:
> > Has anyone read MJD's "Higher Order Perl" book?
>
> Only the first chapter so far, but it's looking good. As expected.
>
> > If they come out with a 'Jerl' or some java scripting
> > with perl syntax, then I might bury myself in it again.
>
> Just curious ... what don't you like about Perl scripting with perl syntax?
> (Seriously - not a flame.. just wondering..)
>
> --
> Brian.

-- 
 -- Jason


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