Re^3: Perl 5's greatest limitation is...?

Here's an example from my experience. I wrote a perl script to do something via Telnet, and wanted to hide the password input. I downloaded Term::ReadKey which worked fine, but I had to go round every PC in the department installing the module on each one.

When I moved on to a new project, I took the script with me and found a use for much the same functionality, but Term::ReadKey would not install. It turns out that it needs a C compiler.

It's not exactly a weakness with the language, but if we were using C (admittedly with non-standard platform-specific extensions), I wouldn't have needed anything else as I would have hand-coded it pretty easily. In fact a hidden input routine was one of my personal library of C functions back in those days.

Comment on Re^3: Perl 5's greatest limitation is...?

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Re^4: Perl 5's greatest limitation is...? by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Aug 01, 2005 at 12:03 UTC
A good example, though the problems you describe are hardly unique to Perl, and I wouldn't have classed them as "maintainance issues". Maintenance usually refers to source code maintenance. What you are describing I would probably term installation and distribution. The need to install libraries everywhere is the same if you dynamically link your C/C++/whatever application against a (3rdparty) .dll or .so, or Java against a .class file etc. The best fix for all flavours of the problem is a central installation on the LAN. Of course, if Perl could produce distributable bytecode that would be nice and would save a lot of problems in distribution. Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal? "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". The "good enough" maybe good enough for the now, and perfection maybe unobtainable, but that should not preclude us from striving for perfection, when time, circumstance or desire allow.	[reply]
Re^5: Perl 5's greatest limitation is...? by PhilHibbs (Hermit) on Aug 01, 2005 at 12:30 UTC
The need to install libraries everywhere is the same if you dynamically link your C/C++/whatever application against a (3rdparty) .dll or .so, or Java against a .class file etc. That's why I've never done any of those things.	[reply]