prad_intel has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi monks ,

Although I have been using perl for a few months , I am very excited to use and play around with it.

Even before i encountered this powerful perl , i had dreams and ambitions to start an R&D centre of my own and the progress is in such a way that , I am just an year away between the road connecting dream and reality.

Monks , Now my questions are as follows..

1) I would like to know , how successfully is perl used in embedded development.

2) Are there any compilers that convert perl code to C code or Assembly Code.

3) I have used perl for testing a hardware by connecting it to the UART of PC and toggling the GPIO's , can this be further developed to make a software which can suit any kind of hardware testing .

4) Are there any companied in the world who completely rely on perl.

5)I have read and also feel "The only limitation is your imagination" is it true for perl.

I would be delighted to inform you all that my centre mainly works on perl asap.

Thanks a ton to those who take time to add to my effort of making of a R&D centre.

Prad

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Can perl change the world !
by jbrugger (Parson) on Feb 02, 2005 at 07:20 UTC
    Can perl change the world? I thought it did alreaddy :-)

    But for your notes:
    1: I'm no expert in embedding perl on handhelds, phones etc, i only use it embedded in Apache. It's verry succesfull there.
    2: Yes there are, however not fully matured. I also wonder if there should be.
    3: I think so.
    4: Yes, we use it for our program called evaluation, but i doubt if anyone does completely rely on perl (or any language
    5: Agreed: he! did i mention perl can even fly a plane and is totally ai capable? ;-)
    Perl
    Perl is a stable, cross platform programming language and it is used for mission critical projects in the public and private sectors. Perl is Open Source software that is supported by, Unix systems, Macintosh (OS 7-9 and X) and Windows.

    Perl Features:
  • Perls database integration interface supports third-party databases including Oracle, Sybase, Postgres, MySQL and others.
  • Perl works with HTML, XML, and other mark-up languages.
  • Perl supports Unicode.
  • Perl supports both procedural and object-oriented programming.
  • Perl interfaces with external C/C++ libraries through XS or SWIG.
  • Perl is extensible. There are over 500 third party modules available from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network
  • The Perl interpreter can be embedded into other systems.
    • Perl and the Web:
  • Perl is the most popular web programming language due to its text manipulation capabilities and rapid development cycle.
  • Perl can handle encrypted Web data, including e-research transactions.
  • Perl can be embedded into web servers to speed up processing by as much as 2000%.
[reply]
Re: Can perl change the world !
by Anonymous Monk on Feb 02, 2005 at 10:15 UTC
    Well, a R&D center should be able to find answers to most of these questions itself, wouldn't it? As for the questions:
    1. If I were to say "very succesfully", would that statement mean anything to you? Perhaps my "very" means "hardly" to you.
    2. Yes there are. But if you mean "are there any compilers that can turn a non-trivial piece of Perl code into compilable and runable C code", then the answer is no. Unless you mean a compiler that just spits out a piece of code that has an embedded Perl compiler and the code you want to run wrapped together. A lot of work was done on perlcc. However, that work was done in the 5.004 era. No significant development has been done on it since.
    3. Yes. But then, so can a piece of Java code used to print bar codes.
    4. No. Not even perl itself depends solely on perl. Perl depends on C (it was written in C, has extentions written in XS/C, uses dynamic libraries written in C). It also needs on OS to run. It needs hardware to run on. And that hardware needs power to run. Companies also depend on their local mail provider, delivering mail every day. They depend on banks. On janitors. And on their employees.
    5. No, it's not true for Perl. Perl does have limits, although some are set by its environment. But there are theoretical limits as well. Perl is equivalent to a Turing Machine - anything that can't be calculated by a Turing Machine, you can't calculate with Perl.
[reply]
      Thus see Turning Machines about what are the limits (section 5)
      He, i didn't know either.
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Re: Can perl change the world !
by EverLast (Scribe) on Feb 02, 2005 at 08:32 UTC
    To me, Perl changes the world for me as I go along.

    As issues crop up in my daily work, Perl resembles the swiss army knife, which when applied carefully turns up the swift solutions.

    But of course, as with a real swiss knife, some problems need specialized tools. The more you try to use and apply Perl, the easier it will be for you to identify the need for special (other) tools.

    Cheers,

    ---Lars

[reply]
Re: Can perl change the world !
by kprasanna_79 (Hermit) on Feb 02, 2005 at 08:54 UTC
    Hey i am not that much expertice in embedded perl but few things i like to brush up abt it
    1. we can write optimised code in perl, which is very essential
    in embedded device which has less memory for storage
    2. Lot of companies uses perl now days for interface with hardware(ex:- networking devices)
    3.Most of network based company rely on perl, even most search engine uses
    4.Congrats for ur R&D centre
    Rely on perl
    sucess is ur
    --prasanna.k
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Re: Can perl change the world !
by zentara (Cardinal) on Feb 02, 2005 at 16:00 UTC
[reply]
Re: Can perl change the world !
by opensourcer (Monk) on Feb 02, 2005 at 06:29 UTC
    Hi,
    Im no expert, but i'll tell u what i know
    about Perl changing the world?, it has already started, but the only problem, slow release of versions, as u know development of perl 5 to 6 has already taken to long, i hope that every 1 including me looking for the next version of perl 6 (although it's available but im looking for stable and complete perl 6)it has answers for many of our Q's.
    As far as embedded is concern, it is very much used and even IBM is using it it's wireless devices/development and nokia too started to using perl, it won't be much longer to perl and it's associates taking on the Opensource world
    but u need to check google and i guess the other monks/siats will comment on this issue, u will find great resouce from them
    Thanks a lot
    opensourcer
    "I really don't live on earth, it's just my reflection"
    "open source is not only technology, but it's a world out there - opensourcer"

    20050202 Janitored by Corion: Changed </br> to <br />

[reply]

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