Perl & XML

Leitchn has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

To those of you used to seeing coding questions, here's a non-coding one:

Why is Perl so looked down on as a language for use with XML?
The implementation of choice for XML seems to be either Java or ASP, so what is it about Perl that leaves it on the sidelines?

Thanks for any insights.

Comment on Perl & XML

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: Perl & XML by mirod (Canon) on Nov 06, 2000 at 21:59 UTC
Hey, time for a shameless plug! You can have a look at What's wrong with Perl and XML? for my opinion on the subject. (you may also want to check the Forum for various, often opposite, views) To sum it up I would just say that XML and Java are a much better cultural fit than Perl and XML. Whitout even discussing the technical merits of both languages for XML processing, the kind of environment where XML is used is often much more Java-oriented than Perl-oriented. Which does not mean that Perl cannot be used to process XML, PerlMonks uses XML quite a lot (User nodes info xml generator, Newest Nodes XML Generator., the ChatterBox client...	[reply]
Re: Perl & XML by Fastolfe (Vicar) on Nov 06, 2000 at 21:50 UTC
With Java, you have several orders of magnitude more coders already, and given that Java is to programming languages as XML is to data representations, it's only natural that Java would have the good XML tools first. ASP is a major dynamic page generation language out there, and given that XML is a good choice for representing data in back-ends, it's only natural that ASP have access to similar tools. To be honest, I didn't realize Perl was "looked down" upon for its XML implementations. As far as I know, they're as complete and easy-to-use (perhaps easier, but that's just Perl) as any other implementation. See XML::Simple and XML::Parser. Perl isn't always the best language for the task, so perhaps some of these other tasks you're thinking about just seemed better in another language? shrug	[reply]
RE: Re: Perl & XML by Leitchn (Acolyte) on Nov 06, 2000 at 21:55 UTC
My use of looked down upon was based on views and opinions on news and XML-centric websites that all seem to look to other languages, not from personal experience. no offence to Perl intended! ;^)	[reply]
(ar0n) Re: Perl & XML by ar0n (Priest) on Nov 06, 2000 at 21:51 UTC
mirod wrote an article on that, viewable at xml.com. It's an interesting read. [ar0n]	[reply]
Re: Perl & XML by wardk (Deacon) on Nov 06, 2000 at 21:52 UTC
Interestingly, there is a relevent article here I found linked from perl.com	[reply]

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