Re: Industry Specific Uses of Perl

In my many client engagements, aside from the many and varied utility libraries (I really ought to put my PAUSE id to good use for the better good:-)) and scripts, the more specific uses include:

Automate the system/soak testing of a SAN product - incl. test result gathering and publication
Provide the basis of a customer API Implementation for the aforementioned SAN product
Provide the glue for SMTP/X400 e-mail & LDAP/X500 systems
Implementing X500/LDAP data management (incl. importing/exporting/synchronisation) tools
Synchronise a multitude of disparate client problem databases with a central project problem database tool
Migrate data from (and then subsequently maintain synchronisation between) a SQL Server based software repository & configuration data into a proprietary CM system
Produce/generate intra-net MIS websites
Implement entirely platform neutral make rules (within a ClearCase environment)
Customise/supplement CM tools to better support/fit in with the defined CM process(es)
Automate the unit testing of both *NIX shell script & C utilities
Implement a self-configuring, extensible dirty word search tool for secure websites and e-mails
Implement a bespoke, UNIX ABI compliant packaging toolset

There's undoubtedly more, but the thought of a nice cool pint, or several, ...

:-D

A user level that continues to overstate my experience :-))

Comment on Re: Industry Specific Uses of Perl

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Re^2: Industry Specific Uses of Perl by Anonymous Monk on Oct 03, 2009 at 02:34 UTC
How Perl Saved the Human Genome Project by Lincoln Stein http://www.bioperl.org/wiki/How_Perl_saved_human_genome THE PROBLEM: Although the two centers use almost identical laboratory techniques, almost identical databases, and almost identical data analysis tools, they still can't interchange data or meaningfully compare results. THE SOLUTION: Perl. The human genome project was inaugurated at the beginning of the decade as an ambitious international effort to determine the complete DNA sequence of human beings and several experimental animals. The justification for this undertaking is both scientific and medical. By understanding the genetic makeup of an organism in excruciating detail, it is hoped that we will be better able to understand how organisms develop from single eggs into complex multicellular beings, how food is metabolized and transformed into the constituents of the body, how the nervous system assembles itself into a smoothly functioning ensemble. ..... Altogether, people estimate that some 1 to 10 terabytes of information will need to be stored in order to see the human genome project to its conclusion. So what's Perl got to do with it? From the beginning researchers realized that informatics would have to play a large role in the genome project. An informatics core formed an integral part of every genome center that was created. The mission of these cores was two-fold: to provide computer support and databasing services for their affiliated laboratories, and to develop data analysis and management software for use by the genome community as a whole. ..... Perl has been the solution of choice for genome centers whenever they need to exchange data, or to retrofit one center's software module to work with another center's system. So Perl has become the software mainstay for computation within genome centers as well as the glue that binds them together. Although genome informatics groups are constantly tinkering with other "high level" languages such as Python, Tcl and recently Java, nothing comes close to Perl's popularity.	[reply]

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Re^2: Industry Specific Uses of Perl
by Anonymous Monk on Oct 03, 2009 at 02:34 UTC

by Lincoln Stein

http://www.bioperl.org/wiki/How_Perl_saved_human_genome

THE PROBLEM: Although the two centers use almost identical laboratory techniques, almost identical databases, and almost identical data analysis tools, they still can't interchange data or meaningfully compare results.

THE SOLUTION: Perl.

The human genome project was inaugurated at the beginning of the decade as an ambitious international effort to determine the complete DNA sequence of human beings and several experimental animals. The justification for this undertaking is both scientific and medical. By understanding the genetic makeup of an organism in excruciating detail, it is hoped that we will be better able to understand how organisms develop from single eggs into complex multicellular beings, how food is metabolized and transformed into the constituents of the body, how the nervous system assembles itself into a smoothly functioning ensemble. ..... Altogether, people estimate that some 1 to 10 terabytes of information will need to be stored in order to see the human genome project to its conclusion.

So what's Perl got to do with it? From the beginning researchers realized that informatics would have to play a large role in the genome project. An informatics core formed an integral part of every genome center that was created. The mission of these cores was two-fold: to provide computer support and databasing services for their affiliated laboratories, and to develop data analysis and management software for use by the genome community as a whole. .....

Perl has been the solution of choice for genome centers whenever they need to exchange data, or to retrofit one center's software module to work with another center's system.

So Perl has become the software mainstay for computation within genome centers as well as the glue that binds them together. Although genome informatics groups are constantly tinkering with other "high level" languages such as Python, Tcl and recently Java, nothing comes close to Perl's popularity.

[reply]