"When you get your first hammer, everything looks like a nail"

Like that old saw, it sure is handy to roll out Perl for everything. You need to pick up different tools when the situation dictates, however .. Perl is a complex tool, so has a large-ish memory footprint.

For something that requires lower memory requirements and fairly simple logic, a shell script would probably be a better choice. Of course, you have to weigh that against the possibility that you'll need to add a script feature that will require language features only available in Perl.

For something that requires maximum speed, on the other hand, you'll probably want hand-tuned C or even a mix of assembler and C.

So the answer, it seems, is "It depends..".

--t. alex

"Mud, mud, glorious mud. Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!" --Michael Flanders and Donald Swann

In reply to Re: Perl vs. Shell Script by talexb
in thread Perl vs. Shell Script by ellem

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