[za-pm] is Perl on the decline?

Thu Apr 8 06:38:56 PDT 2010

Another example: At a major SA financal institution we are working a M$
developer was given the task to clean name and address lists on a DB2
database. You know the thing: Address line1, line2,... with potentially
everything in each line. The task was to sort that as far as possible into
title, forenames, surname,...

Anyway, a month later he came back proudly wielding a 12page SQL script.
When asked how it worked he refused to explain, with a proud smile, saying
the logic was too impenetrable.

I heard about this, had a look around on CPAN, downloaded
Lingua::EN::NameParse, and after fiddling with the config file to introduce
local titles like Mnr/Mev/..., I was cleaning the DB2 data no problem.  And
I only had to write 10 lines of code, and importantly no parsing. And it
took me one hour. And the parsing criteria are in a config file for all to
see, easy to change.

>From every possible angle, except the original programmers twisted sense of
pride, the Perl solution was better.

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 2:20 PM, Spike <spike at mweb.co.za> wrote:

> Note: Beware! Default reply-to is to the list.
>
>  perl will never die for the simple reason it works. And works fast. Ask a
> java programmer to do the equivalent of perl -p -i -e on a hundred 500Mb
> files and see which app is ready first and which runs the quickest.
>
> We have complex systems built on .net. they work, not brilliantly but they
> do work.  But simple things are often very time consuming. A quick example
> springs to mind - we need to FTP a 600Mb text files from a remote site and
> total all the numbers in the 4th, 9th and 17th columns depending on the
> value of the text in the first column. It took about 15 mintis to write and
> hour to polish in perl. The .net guys are still trying to get the FTP to
> work.
>
> So what I'm saying is that no matter how advanced and expensive your lazer
> concrete cutter is, a drill will always be faster and more reliable if you
> want to make hole.
>
> Winston Haybittle (by way of Anne Wainwright <anotheranne at fables.co.za><anotheranne at fables.co.za>)
> wrote:
>
> Note: Beware! Default reply-to is to the list.
> Hi Ann & Group
> We need clear roadmap for PERL 6, maybe a standards cross platform compiler.
> This is definitely not technical issue, maybe management/marketing
> optimizations needed. And then there is training and support? I mean PERL
> kills PHP hands down?! Modern day architecture with open standards means
> that Programming Language/OS lock in is less relevant. People should be
> packaging virtual appliances with Perl in the core? As is the norm with the
> very best VM appliances.
> Winston...
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: za-pm-bounces+winstonh=mweb.co.za at pm.org
> [mailto:za-pm-bounces+winstonh=mweb.co.za at pm.org <za-pm-bounces+winstonh=mweb.co.za at pm.org>] On Behalf Of Anne
> Wainwright
> Sent: 06 April 2010 11:04 PM
> To: za perlmongers
> Subject: [za-pm] is Perl on the decline?
>
> Note: Default reply-to is to the poster.
> Hi,
>
> Well, is it?
>
> I was surprised (perhaps I wasn't) when I logged onto the za-pm
> list-server to find that of course it is the ubiquitous Mailman which
> is written in Python, and although it is a very capable package I
> thought we might be supporting home industries  ;) There are a number of
> mailing list managers written in perl (sympa, dadamail). Can't comment
> on whether we have the best one, but I'm happy with it anyway.
>
> Looking on the ubuntu software centre app, entering 'perl' brings up 19
> apps which is reduced to 13 if we omit editors, ide's, and perl-specific
> tools.
>
> entering 'python' brings up 99 apps reduced to 72 on the same basis.
>
> OK, figures up or down one or two, but that's a big difference. There
> are an awful lot more general applications written in Python than perl
> available for a linux box.
>
> Conversely, under IT & computer the local new book site loot.co.za
> lists 338 books under 'perl' and 207 under 'python', but of course Perl
> has been around a _lot_longer and many of the perl titles are of
> long-standing.
>
> I am (very slowly) developing an app in perl/Catalyst. Needing
> something up and running faster than I was going I found a RAD front -
> Kexi - to do the CRUD dirtywork. No suprise, buttons & stuff can have
> actions coded in Python or Ruby, but not perl! That's the KDE offering,
> the Gnome offering - Glom - also allows coding in Python but not in perl
> (or Ruby for that matter).
>
> This result could of course be skewed by the sort of programming that
> each language is typically used for. Perl is probably way ahead in the
> administration stakes, but why has it lagged behind in general useage?
> Is this a technical issue?
>
> Do we have a new generation of programmers brought up on Python and not
> perl? At the local university Python has been the starter package for
> IT for some years. They are very M$ oriented and students are not
> much exposed to linux and hence perl.
>
> I could go on, but wondered what the views on this from the
> professional world are.
>
> bestest
> Anne
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