2 cents of curiosity: JPL: What was it? How is it?

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

Hello *

enoch's node Java Language Parser made me remember about a Larry Wall's project called JPL (Java-Perl Lingo). The questions are:

what was it, in short?
did anybody of you use it? What for?
is it currently developed or is it a dead project?

(As far as I remember, it was initially sold by O'Reilly and then released to the public, but I really may be wrong.)

Ciao!
--bronto

The very nature of Perl to be like natural language--inconsistant and full of dwim and special cases--makes it impossible to know it all without simply memorizing the documentation (which is not complete or totally correct anyway).
--John M. Dlugosz

Comment on 2 cents of curiosity: JPL: What was it? How is it?

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Re: 2 cents of curiosity: JPL: What was it? How is it? by tachyon (Chancellor) on Apr 10, 2003 at 10:15 UTC
Here is an ORA link tachyon s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print	[reply]
Re: Re: 2 cents of curiosity: JPL: What was it? How is it? by Anonymous Monk on Apr 10, 2003 at 13:24 UTC
Is this an April's Fool? I don't think it is true...	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: 2 cents of curiosity: JPL: What was it? How is it? by bronto (Priest) on Apr 10, 2003 at 13:37 UTC
No jokes, just out of date. Ciao! `--bronto` The very nature of Perl to be like natural language--inconsistant and full of dwim and special cases--makes it impossible to know it all without simply memorizing the documentation (which is not complete or totally correct anyway). --John M. Dlugosz	[reply]
Re: 2 cents of curiosity: JPL: What was it? How is it? by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Apr 10, 2003 at 12:07 UTC
While I don't have an answer, I can contribute 2 cents of trivia. When Larry released Perl for the first time, Larry was working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL for short. Abigail	[reply]
Re: 2 cents of curiosity: JPL: What was it? How is it? by autarch (Hermit) on Apr 10, 2003 at 22:21 UTC
In short, it was a tool to allow the use of Java and Perl in a single program. It allows you to implement Java methods in Perl code (according to its README). In fact, it is included in the Perl 5.6.1 and 5.8.0 tarballs under the jpl directory, but it's not installed unless you go into that directory and run the install-jpl script yourself. Did anyone use it? AFAIK, there has never been any major use of it discussed on any Perl forum. That doesn't mean no one ever used it, but it certainly didn't take off. Is it dead? I think so. Certainly, no one is maintaining it, and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't even work with 5.8.0.	[reply]
Re: 2 cents of curiosity: JPL: What was it? How is it? by perrin (Chancellor) on Apr 10, 2003 at 23:00 UTC
People did use it and claimed it worked fine. Type "JPL" into Super Search and you'll get a ton of stuff back. These days you would probably be more likely to use Inline::Java.	[reply]
Re: Re: 2 cents of curiosity: JPL: What was it? How is it? by TimToady (Parson) on Apr 11, 2003 at 17:33 UTC
But note that JPL was coming at it from the other direction. You could think of it as an Inline::Perl for Java. To call back into Java you just used an XS binding to JNI that made Java classes and methods look Perlish.	[reply]