As one who sometimes posts crazy questions that don't make sense...sometimes we are looking for best practices or the theory behind the question, but we don't *know* it.

If you are not used to event based programming, formulating a question can be confusing.

If you are a windows programmer, fork and pipe are confusing. Sometimes we want the background details: Lookup the fork() function. It will make 2 copies of your script that share all variables/handles then each half does its work...fork is not supported on all platforms, it is in alpha on Win32, and even then, isn't fully compatible

If you are a windows person, understaning how to interact with the shell can be very complex. Not to mention that most Perl stuff is Unix/Linux oriented...so it is nice to have the "watch fors"

It might be nice to have an "experience level" combo box next to the question...that gives the awesome Monks some idea of how to formulate a response, which we are VERY grateful ! (also a platform combo would be cool)

Here is a good example of something I recently struggled with, that isn't Perl, but I want to do it with Perl ;-)

I want to execute a command-line send mail program from my program. Now I am on Win32 but want Linux compatability. Even with the W32 qualification, most people assume I know mail or mailx. I am concerned about how long the message body can be? Is that an issue on Unix? Would be on Win32...What about a pipe? Why not use Net::SMTP? Well if you have a Tk app, it will block...is that an issue? Call fork() Ok for UNIX? Probably too much overhead for Win32... I think that many of us feel that these issues have been dealt with so many times, there are good rules of thumb to follow...maybe we are wrong ;-)

While it looks like I am asking how to call an external program, I might not be able to express my concerns as I don't know the tradeoffs...

I don't know how to make it easier, but many of us are learning what you might consider the basics along with our new found interest in Perl !!!

In reply to Re: Where is the boundary between 'in bounds' and 'out of bounds'? by smackdab
in thread Where is the boundary between 'in bounds' and 'out of bounds'? by dws

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