Plus, I tried to convert it and make it portable, and it didn't work. I have a folder called C:\BIN where I keep all my portable programs. By "portable" I mean anything that does not need installation. I can just copy and paste the entire contents of C:\BIN to another computer and then I just copy and paste all the desktop icons that point to these programs, and they all work without having to run setup. They are copy-and-paste-ready programs. This directory includes programs like RECUVA which helps restore deleted files, EVEREST that shows system information, HDTUNE a hard drive testing utility, Presto ImageFolio LE a powerful photo editor, PhotoScape another great photo editor, XnView which is a very good photo viewer/converter, FOXIT PDF viewer, WINSCP FTP program, 7Zip, NOTEPAD2 my fav. text editor, KMELEON web browser, CHROMIUM, PALEMOON, OPERA, SEAMONKEY, QupZilla web browser, TUX PAINT, WEBSTER college dictionary program, several Bible softwares, AUTOIT3, PY, PHP, PERL, and a bunch of other things. If I had to install each program one by one, it would take forever. But since they are portable, I can install them by just simply selecting the folder and copy and paste! Very simple!
Now, Strawberry Perl installed a bunch of other things on my computer such as gcc and tons of stuff that I will probably never use. I only want the core Perl. I don't need all the extras. Besides, I am a beginner Perl programmer. I haven't even learned to use all the builtin functions yet. Why would I need all the other stuff? So, I tried to find a smaller Perl version. And I found that TinyPerl is perfect for my needs. I also have another Perl built for DOS, and that's an even earlier version. It's Perl 5.004 I think. So, I have used that to see if my Perl scripts will run on that. And if they don't, then I tweak them to make sure they do. Why? Because I like to write scripts which are backward compatible. I guess I "inherited" this from the JavaScript world.
For years, I had a Nokia phone which I loved because it takes amazing photos. It's very sharp. The colors are very real. Many times the pictures look better than the real life. Anyway, Microsoft dropped support for this phone. That means no more updates! So, when I surfed the web, I noticed that more and more websites quit working. They would fail to load or display error messages. That's because JavaScript the language itself was getting updates. The website designers began using newer language syntax which broke my phone. So, all I got was error messages upon error messages. One time I started filling out a form, and at the very last page where I had to click on Submit, I got a script error and could not complete the form. I got really mad at the web designers, because they did not care about people who used older phones, and it was clear to me that compatibility wasn't on their mind. And when you submit a feedback to a site admin, they of course will assume that their site works fine (it's always the stupid user who doesn't know what he's doing). So, this got me into the habit of testing my websites on older phones and older web browsers, so I started collecting computers and phones just for testing... I design and maintain some sites, and I want those sites to work well and function correctly on all devices!! This means I am purposely going to avoid using the latest JavaScript syntax and keywords that will break compatibility. Think about this: The average visitor doesn't care whether my site uses the latest technology or not. They don't care whether I use "var" or "let" to define a variable. It's doesn't matter! They just want to use my website. But if I use the "let" keyword which is a newer invention, I will cause my site to become completely unusable to those who use old hardware. So, here is where I inherit the use of old style programming.
Then I learned Perl, and I learned that I can use open() function with two arguments or three. If I use three arguments, it breaks backward compatibility, so I don't want that. I want my perl scripts to run fine on older systems as well. I don't care that only 3 people in the world use such old hardware and software. For the sake of those 3 people, I will write code that is backward compatible! I don't care that it doesn't have modern syntax. By the way, the average computer user doesn't care about your syntax either! They just want your program to work. Period. Save your time and don't tell me for the millionth time why the three-argument open() function is safer in Perl. I know why it's safer. And for that reason, I usually filter the file name using the tr operator to make sure that certain special characters cannot be inserted into the file name to launch malicious code. Don't worry, I write my code carefully. But I just like to write code that works universally. That was the beauty of JavaScript, too, that it would run on any device ...UNTIL they started updating the syntax and adding new things to it. Now, most websites will say "You need to update your web browser to view this site." It's sad. :/
In reply to Re: I prefer not to run the latest version of Perl because:
by harangzsolt33
in thread I prefer not to run the latest version of Perl because:
by hippo
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