Re: major advocacy help needed
Well done. With sample code too: http://otn.oracle.com/sample_code/products/ias/files/perl/index.html But they seem very quiet about it. Couldn't find many links compared to all the other stuf. It should appear on that technology combos and Sample Code menu. Probably will when v2 arrives. Cya Tim Bunce wrote on 8/4/04 10:42: But Perl and 9iAS do go together. Oracle actually bundles Perl and DBI with 9aAS: http://otn.oracle.com/produ cts/ias/daily/oct04.html Oracle HTTP Server: Perl and DBI/DBD Support [...] Oracle9iAS simplifies this significantly by making Perl a first-class citizen and providing all the relevant modules together. Additional modules are being included in the upcoming release (Oracle9iAS v2). [...] Summary The continuing additions of new Perl modules to Oracle9iAS make it a strong platform for application development in Perl. This strong string manipulation language makes the task of building quick dynamic sites from a program quite easy. Tim.
Re: major advocacy help needed
Well done. With sample code too: http://otn.oracle.com/sample_code/products/ias/files/perl/index.html But they seem very quiet about it. Couldn't find many links compared to all the other stuf. It should appear on that technology combos and Sample Code menu. Probably will when v2 arrives. Cya Tim Bunce wrote on 8/4/04 10:42: But Perl and 9iAS do go together. Oracle actually bundles Perl and DBI with 9aAS: http://otn.oracle.com/produ cts/ias/daily/oct04.html Oracle HTTP Server: Perl and DBI/DBD Support [...] Oracle9iAS simplifies this significantly by making Perl a first-class citizen and providing all the relevant modules together. Additional modules are being included in the upcoming release (Oracle9iAS v2). [...] Summary The continuing additions of new Perl modules to Oracle9iAS make it a strong platform for application development in Perl. This strong string manipulation language makes the task of building quick dynamic sites from a program quite easy. Tim.
Re: major advocacy help needed
Gabor (the stirrer;-) wrote: It does not have a father. What if those people lose interest. Having a father does not help. People can still lose interest. What if the father goes out of business? Or is bought by another company? Languages go in and out of fashion. Do Delphi and PowerBuilder, for example, have a rosy future? I once worked for a company with millions of line investment in a 4GL ... then the company that made it went out of business. Oops. Worse, without the source code, it was impossible to fix bugs in the interpreter or port it to more modern OS versions. At least with Perl you have all the source code. What about copyright issues ? I'll need to ask our lawyer ($200/hour) for every library we download. I'm interested in this. Does anyone know if there has ever been a court case re (mis-)use of CPAN modules? I do worry about it a little, but don't seek a legal opinion, just check the license that comes with the module. I heard a CPAN author recently got an email from IBM asking a long list of questions, such as how can he be sure that every patch he has received from third parties for his module is 100% clean. However, I'm not convinced that Perl is any more troublesome than Java in this regard. For example, precisely which parts of Java (JRE/JDK/Jakarta/ other 3rd party Java libraries ...) are you allowed to redistribute with your commerical application? What are the legal implications of reverse engineering Java byte code? Or cutting and pasting JDK source code into your commercial app, then editing it? Perl is an old langugage, does it have objects anyway ? Yes. And Perl (like C++) lets you choose the appropriate style for each problem, not forcing you to use OO when it's inappropriate. Personally, I dislike OO-Fascist languages (such as Java and Smalltalk). what you pay is what you get. Rubbish. There are many counter-examples to this rule, especially in software (and perfumes, where setting the price is more or less a marketing decision, I think). Hardware is cheap, it is not relevant. Rubbish again. People have been claiming this for years. Though I admit it seems to be slowly becoming less important. Installing 50 modules from CPAN is a nightmare. Why? I find it enjoyable. So what are the pros ? To me, a big advantage of using a language like Perl or Ruby or Python over Java or C++ is that you write far fewer lines of code (sometimes a factor of 10, depending on the problem domain) to solve the same problem. An example I remember is a 100-line Java program: http://java.sun.com/developer/qow/archive/184/index.jsp that can be easily solved in one line of Perl: perl -ne'/^192\.(?:9|18|29)\./||/\.(?:gif|GIF|jpg|JPG|css|CSS) HTTP/ or print' inf p The Perl version also runs much faster (though that is not acknowledged in the java.sun.com article). /-\ Find local movie times and trailers on Yahoo! Movies. http://au.movies.yahoo.com
Re: major advocacy help needed
Hi there, in reply to his questions... not have a father. What if those people lose interest. What if we have a problem and those kids are not interested in fixing it. We cannot afford to invest in something so risky. What about all those VB6 applications everybody got stuck with VB.NET? What about Sun fiering 10% of it's staff? Very relative argument, risk can buy the same things for Java. Where can I buy support for those libraries on CPAN ? What about copyright issues ? I'll need to ask our lawyer ($200/hour) for every library we download. You can buy, yes. And have your staff waiting in line for tech support. Jar's also have licenses. Perl is an old langugage, does it have objects anyway ? The point being? So you say it might not fit? I want to decide on our language of choice NOW ! And yes, BTW what you pay is what you get. A bad implementation can allways happen, regardless of language. And if you're not 100% sure whatever the choice, Perl has this advantage over non-free competitors. Btw: what you pay is what you get? Have you heard of Vignette :)) Hardware is cheap, it is not relevant. Does Perl have such a wide choice of Application Servers ? Hardware is cheap? Good for you, my friend :) Perl and 9iAS don't go together. I can live with that, can't say it makes me sad :) Perl scripters can't even read each others code. Well, most of the time it's Open Source, so yes we can ;) Perl is an interpreted scripting languge. It is known to be slow. Although not like some years ago, JVM's are still slow. C is faster. Well, there are great modules for caching at CPAN your lawyer should know of, like storable and mason. You can allways tune your applications very easilly and effectively in Perl Installing 50 modules from CPAN is a nightmare. Although I don't agree, it's done only once, although 50 is a big number. There's a CPAN module that helps you do the job. If you can't already do it through some package manager, of course Does it run on mobile phones and on PDAs ? Porting your J2EE applications to J2ME is not an easy task. Is this a requisite? So what are the pros ? Listen, my advice to you is: think very carefully about your real needs and everything else will follow. There is a number of pretty decent languages, and Perl is one of them, and so is Java. First just find out what your real needs are before you decide. Otherwise you're just having a 'yet another vi vs. emacs' academic discussion. If you have the freedom of choice, choose wisely. Cya
Re: major advocacy help needed
Considering that maybe your boss, being a Senior VP, isn't very sensible to the language's specs, I'd try a more high level approach: ... and the VP will respond something like this: - Perl is an Open Source language with world wide support of a large enthusiastic community independent from 3rd party corporate interests It does not have a father. What if those people lose interest. What if we have a problem and those kids are not interested in fixing it. We cannot afford to invest in something so risky. - A lot has been done through the years to enrich the language (CPAN) I can buy the same things for Java. Where can I buy support for those libraries on CPAN ? What about copyright issues ? I'll need to ask our lawyer ($200/hour) for every library we download. - It's no spring chicken. Perl has been around for many years, and it's used because it's good, not because someone sold it as vaporware very well Perl is an old langugage, does it have objects anyway ? - Being also free, in case your boss changes his mind later, there is no risk of regretting some big licenses investment So you say it might not fit ? I want to decide on our language of choice NOW ! And yes, BTW what you pay is what you get. - Perl is quite lightweight and tipycally does not need big hardware or expensive application servers to run, like Java does Hardware is cheap, it is not relevant. Does Perl have such a wide choice of Application Servers ? - If finding Java programmers is easier, then finding bad Java programmers also is. Quality and quantity differ. Perl scripters can't even read each others code. - A bad OO Java architecture has tipycally tragic performance problems and is hard to reengineer. A poorly implemented Perl architecture is more easily tuned and fixed Perl is an interpreted scripting languge. It is known to be slow. - EAR deployment consumes too much development time Installing 50 modules from CPAN is a nightmare. - Perl also runs everywhere Does it run on mobile phones and on PDAs ? Of course there are pros and cons. I can tell you that by my experience that Java sells better as a concept (it helped to sell lots of computer mags in the past) But at the end of the day, Perl applications are usually much more flexible for changing and tunning. The simple thought of EJB and EJB-QL makes me be sure of this. So what are the pros ? Gabor ps. Basically these were the answeres I got from someone who is not even a VP.
Re: major advocacy help needed
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Gabor Szabo) writes: ... and the VP will respond something like this: Installing 50 modules from CPAN is a nightmare. You've got extremely hands-on VPs. -- It's usually // either for a good reason // or a bad reason - Larry Wall haiku
Re: major advocacy help needed
On Tue, Apr 06, 2004 at 10:25:47AM -0200, Gabor Szabo wrote: ... and the VP will respond something like this: - Perl is an Open Source language with world wide support of a large enthusiastic community independent from 3rd party corporate interests It does not have a father. What if those people lose interest. What if we have a problem and those kids are not interested in fixing it. We cannot afford to invest in something so risky. What if these microcomputers all stop working on 1/1/2000? Yes, there's a risk. In theory it's a huge risk, but in practice, it's effectively mitigated. Perl has gone crises of confidence before, and yet it still thrives. There are currently 5 (!) actively maintained branches for Perl today, only two of which are for long term development and experimentation. Furthermore, Perl is much better suited for the long haul than other open source languages. If you were to choose, say, VB.Net, Lua or Groovy for your infrastructure, who knows if the language will continue to grow over the next 10 years? With Perl, there's not only a large, active base of developers, but also The Perl Foundation who acts as a steward over Perl to support development over the long haul. - It's no spring chicken. Perl has been around for many years, and it's used because it's good, not because someone sold it as vaporware very well Perl is an old langugage, does it have objects anyway ? C++ is an old language, about as old as Perl. Does *it* have objects? ;-) [1] - Perl is quite lightweight and tipycally does not need big hardware or expensive application servers to run, like Java does Hardware is cheap, it is not relevant. Hardware is most certainly relevant. On the one hand, you can throw memory, disk and CPU at a single box to scale up an application. At what point does that become cost prohibitive? 16CPU servers? 64CPU machines, 4GB of RAM per CPU? Eventually, for scalability and reliability, you need to move to a server farm. If you need a server farm just to run your (big, bloated) application, you're going to come to some nasty, thorny systems management issues that are very costly to solve properly. By choosing a more lightweight platform, you postpone those hard problems that are expensive to solve. You can still throw memory, disk and CPU for scalability, but with much better ROI. You can migrate to a server form for reliability, scalability or both, but at a time of your choosing, not your application's. - If finding Java programmers is easier, then finding bad Java programmers also is. Quality and quantity differ. Perl scripters can't even read each others code. You can hire one of two types of programmers - those with shallow knowledge of a programming language, and those with deep knowledge of the craft of software development. Shallow coders will have trouble reading each others code, regardless of the language. Deep coders will be able to read code written by anyone, in many languages. Shallow coders are cheaper, but build buggier systems due to their lack of experience. Deep coders write less code, code faster, are more disciplined and make fewer mistakes. Who do you want to hire? If you hire deep coders, then reading other people's code is not a problem, regardless of the language you're using. - A bad OO Java architecture has tipycally tragic performance problems and is hard to reengineer. A poorly implemented Perl architecture is more easily tuned and fixed Perl is an interpreted scripting languge. It is known to be slow. Perl is compliled, just like Java. The three major differences are that (1) Perl bytecode is not saved to disk, (2) eliminating the separate compilation phase makes Perl easier and quicker to develop, and (3) it is easier to optimize slow parts of a Perl program by running compiled C code than it is in Java. - Perl also runs everywhere Does it run on mobile phones and on PDAs ? Does your application run on mobile phones and PDAs? I thought not. Of course there are pros and cons. I can tell you that by my experience that Java sells better as a concept (it helped to sell lots of computer mags in the past) But at the end of the day, Perl applications are usually much more flexible for changing and tunning. The simple thought of EJB and EJB-QL makes me be sure of this. So what are the pros ? - Faster development - Quicker turnaround - Smaller teams Z. [1] OOP is a phase. Before it we had Structured Programming, and after it, we have Aspect Oriented Programming. There are some big minds in the OOP world that are thinking about what's next after objects. Much of what they forsee has been present in Perl for at least 10 years.
Re: major advocacy help needed
but i am not here to discuss that design. my main boss is a senior vp and his boss is an executive vp who is asking why perl?. this web system has had some instabilities over the last year (one of my tasks is to help fix that) and so the exec vp is getting leery of perl. and they have the usual fud about perl such as write once, can't find perl hackers, etc. i will be preparing a fud/myth busting writeup soon so any ideas on that are welcome. in particular any references to studies or other things that show how much more effective perl is than java would be great. i already can tell them that perl runs faster, perl hackers develop faster and you need fewer of them than java coders. but supporting evidence would great. My own work in the data aquisistion at one Chicago hedge fund might be an example. The data sources range from emailed spreadsheets through PDF's to soap and web- scraping. Their main issues are reliability and flexabliity, in particular being able to get at whatever data sources the traders require. Perl's OO model simplifies the code, and it maintinence; The arugment passing model simplifies data handling, as does the ability to easily generate flexable nested structures; CPAN avoids significant amounts of re-inventing the wheel; the shallow learning curve helps people get involved quickly when they start out. There is also the advantage of using a true high-level language for coding. Unlike Java or Python, integer-size and string-to-numeric issues are handled gracefully by the language itself. This saves us from wasting time with conversions and leaves module and tool code much more reusable. -- Steven Lembark 2930 W. Palmer Workhorse Computing Chicago, IL 60647 +1 888 359 3508
Re: major advocacy help needed
Uri Guttman wrote: hi all, [...] i know about perl.com's success stories (and i will scan them for some good cases) but i want to hear some more and particularly about financial and/or web stuff. i will throw amazon, ticketmaster, morgan stanley, yahoo finance at them to start as they are all large financial perl sites. any others that would impress them? mod_perl success stories list might be helpful: http://perl.apache.org/outstanding/index.html -- __ Stas BekmanJAm_pH -- Just Another mod_perl Hacker http://stason.org/ mod_perl Guide --- http://perl.apache.org mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://use.perl.org http://apacheweek.com http://modperlbook.org http://apache.org http://ticketmaster.com
RE: major advocacy help needed
Longitude, Inc. (http://www.longitude.com) has built its derivatives auction system with Perl. This system is used by Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Garban/ICAP to offer economic derivatives and mortgage prepayment derivatives to their customers. See http://www.economicderivatives.com/; let me know if you have any questions. Benjamin Holzman -Original Message- From: Uri Guttman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 19, 2004 12:11 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: major advocacy help needed hi all, this should perk up this list a bit. i have a real life major advocacy situation and i need all the help i can get. i just landed a consulting position as a perl guru at a major financial firm in boston. it is a corporate java place but there is a fair amount of perl around. in particular there is a major web application that handles millions of hits a day. it is an very unusual design with a heavily customized perl 5.6 (!) being the main engine inside the iplanet (sun's old netscape) webserver. but i am not here to discuss that design. my main boss is a senior vp and his boss is an executive vp who is asking why perl?. this web system has had some instabilities over the last year (one of my tasks is to help fix that) and so the exec vp is getting leery of perl. and they have the usual fud about perl such as write once, can't find perl hackers, etc. i will be preparing a fud/myth busting writeup soon so any ideas on that are welcome. in particular any references to studies or other things that show how much more effective perl is than java would be great. i already can tell them that perl runs faster, perl hackers develop faster and you need fewer of them than java coders. but supporting evidence would great. i know about perl.com's success stories (and i will scan them for some good cases) but i want to hear some more and particularly about financial and/or web stuff. i will throw amazon, ticketmaster, morgan stanley, yahoo finance at them to start as they are all large financial perl sites. any others that would impress them? if anyone here works in those shops or in other large perl-centric places can you write me and tell me about it? they have a 'open source community' internal web site already and it has java stuff and a link to a perl section but it returns a 500 error. :) so i will be working on that side as well. one goal i have is to get this perl community site off the ground and create a 'perl center of excellency' like the java one they have. there is a fair amount perl going on there in various pockets and i will be asking around and surveying its use. creating a perl community there will make it easier to do more perl and get the backing of the top brass. thanx, uri -- Uri Guttman -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.stemsystems.com --Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding- Search or Offer Perl Jobs http://jobs.perl.org
