Octavian Râsnita wrote: > 1. I don't know what it means that perl supports more paradigms than > Java, but I know that the Java / C# OOP style is usually considered > a much complete and better standard than one used by Perl. > Java / DotNet support interfaces, so the classes they create respect > the "contracts" better, while in perl world, the programmer is free, > and nobody points a shotgun to him in order to force him to do it. Perl is a funny animal. It doesn't have a formal support for interfaces, but it suppports multiple class inheritance. It also has - for a very long time now - support for closures, which I find very interesting (few Java developers even heard of it).
Agreeably, Perl is neutral enough to let bad boys ignore the 'contracts' aka interfaces. But I would say that it's more of a feature (some would use the word 'beauty'). I do acknowledge there's some pain in this philosophy though. There's always a workaround to enforce things if you want it to. One of the things I really like about Perl's classes is how there is more than 1 way to mark a class: 1. As a reference to a hash 2. As a reference to a scalar 3. I think there's more, but I can't remember offhand. Each of them has its own advantages. > Java and C# uses a dot notation for separating the classes when > using the OOP style, and even Template-Toolkit uses it, but perl > uses something else. There's a worse one I hear about. PHP is going to use '/'! Personally, I would think little whether the language uses . or ::. It's like saying cars in Japanese adverts are white, and so are Korean. So Chinese cars should be so. As long as they dun use some garish colour, we should all hold hands and sing Auld Lang Syne. > And anyway, for the beginners, this is not a big problem. The > biggest problem is that perl is harder to learn. The programmers > might want to learn a language for a year, and get a job, and after > this they hope that they will find time to learn the chosen language > better while they have a job. Human mentality will usually opt for the path of least resistance. In other words, if they learn Java today, they will look for a bigger Java job tomorrow. Only bosses have the power to wave their hands and say 'You do not want Java. You want to master Perl'. > We could say that perl would be really great for these days if we > could say about it something like: > - It is the most easy to learn language even by the most stupid > programmers. They have already done that. It's called Visual Basic. :) > - It can create portable programs that can run everywhere, under > Windows, Mac, Linux, shared hosting web sites that don't offer root > and shell access... Lose out to expensive marketing folks from Java. > - The source code of the programs can be hidden. Tough argument. No dynamic language can boast the same ease of 'hidden' codes like Java/ C#. There's hope via Komodo though. > - There are very many recent books that teach Perl. Not recent enough. Wrox releases new C# books as soon as Microsoft finds a new reason to launch a new .Net framework. > - Perl is chosen by bigger companies like IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, > Sun, Yahoo, Google, SAP. And Blackboard too! > - There are important other software made in Perl which are used > much these days, like a mailing list manager, a web server, > financial charting software, stock exchange trading applications, etc. I know it works, but the exe file created is huge, compared to a C# executable. It also takes longer to execute too. The truth of the matter is: the bulk of C#'s libraries are happily hidden away in the Windows folder. We need to find a way to do the same for Perl, like a Perl 5.10 Runtime.
