Why Perl?

» pyuson - Why are you using Perl?

Tell us why you want to learn Perl or where you are using it.

-- posted by pyuson

Permalink Print Discussion Join the latest discussions

» jfeil - Simply, Perl works.

Why use Perl? It works. Perl is easy to learn, follows the main "rules" of structured programming, does not require you to dive deep into memory management or "overhead," and is a great all-purpose language for getting Web stuff done. It may not do all the stuff Java does, but then those are the instances that you use Java.

For the most part, I've always used Perl to push data between server and browser, talk to databases, stream out dynamic HTML, and process forms. This was the norm years ago, before XML, DHTML, Java, or talking with expensive Oracle/Sybase database systems.

Perl is also great to do script work where you need a quick-and-dirty solution to mass-updating of data. I've done development in NT, then ported it to Unix, with minimum tweaking. It's file-handle system is pretty straight forward.

Basically, Perl is a fun language to learn and powerful in what it does. If you're looking at a huge enterprise application, you'll want to evaluate other languages and models prior to coding. If you routinely need a great all-purpose scripting language (that also supports CGI), Perl will probably fit the bill. Remember, the "P" in Perl means PRACTICAL.

JF

-- posted by jfeil

Permalink Print Discussion Join the latest discussions