Here's one: Re: "Tired of FUD" Followup: Where the Jobs Are

(The language is called "Perl", and the interpreter/compiler is called "perl". And both Perl and perl are case sensitive ;-)

A nice read is Perl vs. PHP, which discusses the differences to PHP. There's also a little older thread here: Perl/CGI Vs PHP Vs ASP.

(Updated: added reference)

Shouldn't that module do something more like this?

use Inline::Files;
use Inline PERL;

greeting("PERL");

__PERL__
SUB greeting {
    $foo = SHIFT @_ || $_[0];
    $! = 1; # Turn buffering off
    FOR ($i=1, $i<=10, $i++) {
        @a[$i] = $i;
    }
    LOCAL $length = @a;
    PRINT "Hello, $foo\n";
}
[download]

haha :D that was funny :)

Is there an advantage to the other languages or is it simply a matter of choice or just preference?

To elaborate on the points moritz has made and putting aside personal preferences, when it comes down to building that type of application its all about costs.

To my knowledge the cheapest way to build that type of web application would be with a combination of PHP, MySQL and AJAX this may not be the best way. More complex applications would need perhaps the stronger glue provided by Perl.

Using Open source software like PHP, Mysql and Perl etc can make a huge difference to the development costs of applications when compared to ASP etc.

Two other major influences are Labour skill set and Labour costs. As a general rule Perl programmers are more skilled, thinner on the ground and as a result are paid more. PHP programmers are more available and are generally less skilled than their Perl counterparts, Small PHP applications can be coded relatively quickly consequently PHP development costs are lower. There are other considerations regarding hosting choice and availability most offer PHP hosting, ASP costs more.

So at the end of the day its all about time and money, if the software is already in-house and hosting arranged it can become a different ball game. Each new application has to be costed on its merits taking into account all the advantages and disadvantages of the current circumstances and what's available at the time before tendering/estimating a price to the client.

I dont know if I use Inline::PERL I capitalize Perl as a matter of habbit, which I will break right now.

Perl is a programming language, ASP (Active Server Pages) are a server-side script engine, that supports various programming languages including Perl.

there is a very nice framework available for Ruby which is called "Ruby on Rails"

There is a very nice framework available for Perl - Catalyst

---

Unless I state otherwise, all my code runs with strict and warnings

The more you program, the easier it is for you to spot things you do and don't like in different languages, and thus the stronger your preferences tend to become.

His response to a question about "which languages are losing ground" mentioned C, C++, and Perl. The kicker is his reason for Perl's imminent demise: "...everyone has been waiting on a new major release for more than seven years. That is considered far too long."

In response to the earlier question about languages that are gaining ground, Jansen said "Python managed to reach the top 10 because it is the truly object-oriented successor of Perl."

Ugh. You could easily wonder if he has a personal grudge against Perl for some reason. Both those statements are silly, IMHO. But it's more evidence that Perl's image is not in very good shape.

This is common topic around the monastery. I've had my own journey with the language de jour.