Re: Language choice for high-volume Oracle CGI interface?

Lee Fesperman wrote:
>
> Matt Sergeant wrote:
> >
> > Lee Fesperman wrote:
> > >
> > > Actually, there are a lot of disadvantages to using a 'subset' of a language for
> > > specific purpose (like using a subset of Perl for CGI). Assuming you're advocating using
> > > a subset of Perl (so you don't have to learn the full blown language), the disadvantages
> > > of that approach include:
> > >
> > > + You must clearly document this subset, carefully leaving out complexities of the
> > > language that are not needed. What to include can be a very hard choice to make.
> >
> > Why?
>
> Why what? Try ... to enable "using a subset of Perl so you don't have to learn the full
> blown language."

Err, what's to stop you doing that anyway, as it stands right now? Judging by the posts to clp.misc there's an awful lot of people who learn perl without ever reading the documentation - so what's more documentation going to do for them?

> > > + To a user of the subset, many of the elements will be counter-intuitive since they
> > > were actually designed for a larger purpose.
> >
> > Such as? Please give examples, with comparisons to how Jive does this so
> > much better. Don't limit yourself to pure perl, but consider things like
> > EmbPerl which do something very similar to Jive (without it's
> > limitations).
>
> I gave an example before - cgi name lookup. Jive is a a different animal than Perl (even
> some specialized subset); it has tight integration with database - the language directly
> supports SQL data types, SQL nulls, SQL idioms (between, like, ...), input/output
> parameters, nested queries and more.

But sadly it doesn't support networking, system calls, OODB's, complex data structures, persistence, etc. This leaves it rather out in the cold for any serious work. I'm sure it's great for beginners, but what happens when they grow beyond Jive's feature set?

[snip]

> That's exactly what I meant -- those are explicit lookups. Similiar to a C function call
> -- cgiLookup("my_form_name"). Also, the dollar sign and braces notation is hardly
> intuitive to experienced developers from other languages.

Oh come on. We could go around all day with your straw man arguments, and I could counter-argue that your method prevents using variables that might be the same as your form element names. But what would be the point - these are such minor differences, and many people before you and I have found perl to be a perfectly good fit for CGI, and so will many after us.

> > > If you are recommending that Perl CGI is a good choice for an experienced developer in
> > > Perl, I wholeheartedly agree with you.
> >
> > s/ in Perl//;
>
> Another notation that is rare in other languages.

Good. They miss out - not us.

> > My experience with languages limited to one problem domain is that they
> > are just that: Limited.
>
> As if Perl was more than a scripting language! If you want general purpose, try Java (On
> topic !?!), C, Assembly.

Don't troll. There's not a whole lot Perl can't do. And anything Perl can't do I'd be loathe to try in Java too.

Matt.

. Received on Wed Jun 23 1999 - 03:45:08 CDT