in reply to TIMTOWTD Anything

This is actually something that jcwren has been saying constantly. "You don't write device drivers in Perl!", type of thing.

Personally I received quite a few -- on my defense of COBOL. But I didn't do that for reputation. (I don't actually do anything for rep. I'm just trying to be a helpful community member!). I had just a different view.

But mentioning another scripting language in the chatterbox usually is replied with "/ban heretic" or something.

What I heard... It seems that PM is much more friendlier than comp.lang.misc.perl ... Writing a message about python usually ends up with a big fire.

And this I believe that the reputation system helps on. Removing messages that aren't on subject and insulting. So it is both a blessing and a curse...

JanneVee

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RE: RE: TIMTOWTD Anything
by jolhoeft (Sexton) on Sep 13, 2000 at 23:13 UTC
    Device drivers in Perl - shudder.

    Number crunching is something that Perl is not very great at right now. I recently prototyped an algorithm in Perl. Once I was happy with it, I rewrote the core as an XS module. I got a 60-fold speed increase.

    I like python's trick for making making a module a script. I.e. if you execute a file, it runs a main routine, but if you include it, it just imports functions, etc.

[reply]
      merlyn has mentioned a neat module called Inline to make this really easy. Rather than write XS, take Perl functions and write equivalents in C, then inline. The rest is taken care of for you. (Supposed to be.)

      I have not pushed it, but give it a shot.

[reply]

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