Well I think what BastardOperator is touching on is exactly the pain I have felt: Because of all the funny characters and syntax and semantics in Perl, it is difficult to create easy console access to Perl-Module functionality.

For example, based on my experiences with Net::FTP, and having had to write 5 or 6 lines of code for many common actions, I figured it was time to develop Net::FTP::Common, which provides one-line access to many common tasks that took 5-6 lines of Net::FTP (e.g., grepping a listing for a file, uploading a file, downloading a file).

Then, I wanted to be able to perform all of my Net::FTP::Common tasks from the shell, but since, it would be very difficult and traumatizing to new users to try to and access Net::FTP::Common using Perl syntax, so I was forced to write Net::FTP::Shell.

In languages with very few funny characters, ie where common datatypes are actually datatypes (in Perl a plethora of everyday things (dates, email, ip #'s, hostnames, URLS) are actually strings instead of types and require object-oriented syntax to access and use), the programming language and console access are equally easy to use.

The language I have found that allows me access to my programmed functionality as shell access without having to write my own shell parser everytime is REBOL, with TCL/Lisp a close second, except that it again does not export real-word data as first-class types, but instead as strings.

In reply to RE: expect users to program or define a simple definition language? by princepawn
in thread expect users to program or define a simple definition language? by BastardOperator

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.