I've been using Perl since 1994 and for the past several years have used it to build a number of complex mod_perl applications. I love Perl.
The following may be considered heresy, but I believe that these days the quality of the whole development environment is just as important, maybe *more* important than the language itself. I mean that the availability of *easily integrated* tools including IDE, automated testing tools, refactoring, deployment tools, etc. are a HUGE factor in determining what language gets used for a large project
I've become scared that if Perl is to continue to be viable for large, complex, multi-developer projects that the tools need to serious catch-up with what is available for Java, for example. Things like:
- Refactoring Support (see http://www.refactoring.com/) - CVS and/or Subversion integration - Support for integrating regression tests and auto-building - Automated syntax and dependency checking
I've been using Eclipse, with the EPIC plugin (http://e-p-i-c.sourceforge.net/) and so far I like it. It uses Devel::Refactor to support "extract subroutine", but a lot more is needed to match what you can do with Java these days.
What are others' thoughts on this?
------------------------------------------------------- Matisse Enzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.matisse.net/ - http://www.eigenstate.net/
