Here are the 3 things which I think you can't do in Perl:

  1. OS kernel - A complete OS kernel can't even be written in pure C, you have to have assembler code for the really low-level/device-specific stuff. So certainly I would say a higher level language like Perl cannot be used by itself to write a kernel.
  2. Real-Time - Perl is slow, because it isn't C. In most apps, you could argue that "maybe you wouldn't want to do it in Perl, but you could, if you wanted to". However, in real-time apps, there is no such option - if the app can't work fast enough, it isn't real-time...
  3. Embedded - Perl will never be the laguage of choice for writing embedded apps. I'm not talking about WinCE apps, I'm talking embedded - those really really tiny apps, where every byte counts. Nowhere to cram perl, or accomodate the overhead of a high-level language...

Now, it could be argued that with XS and/or inlined code you could do the first 2 of the above (I see no way to get past the space limitations of embedded apps), but at what point does that code stop being Perl and start being C/Assembler?

Last but not least - I don't care that Perl can't do those things. I love Perl for what it can do, not inspite of what it cannot do :)

In reply to Re: What Perl CAN'T do? by SolidState
in thread What Perl CAN'T do? by sanPerl

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.