In a recent interview at LWN Larry Wall provided an explanation for why one might use Perl to script a task even when Perl is not the optimal language for that task. Larry wrote:
People don't want to have to use Perl plus other things. If there is a job that really ought to be written in C++ or Java or Ruby or Python or something like that, but they like Perl, and Perl may not be the best tool yet for it, but they would like it to be.
So rather than learning a different language, they just want to extend Perl toward what is better for that. So I think it it's still laziness."
When Larry speaks of laziness, however, he means it as praise. The programmer is avoiding unnecessary effort, in this case the unnecessary effort of learning a new language.
-
Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
-
Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
<code> <a> <b> <big>
<blockquote> <br /> <dd>
<dl> <dt> <em> <font>
<h1> <h2> <h3> <h4>
<h5> <h6> <hr /> <i>
<li> <nbsp> <ol> <p>
<small> <strike> <strong>
<sub> <sup> <table>
<td> <th> <tr> <tt>
<u> <ul>
-
Snippets of code should be wrapped in
<code> tags not
<pre> tags. In fact, <pre>
tags should generally be avoided. If they must
be used, extreme care should be
taken to ensure that their contents do not
have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent
horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor
intervention).
-
Want more info? How to link
or How to display code and escape characters
are good places to start.
|