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000151_icon-group-sender_Tue Nov 7 12:32:37 2000.msg
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Received: (from root@localhost)
by baskerville.CS.Arizona.EDU (8.11.1/8.11.1) id eA7JWZw11028
for icon-group-addresses; Tue, 7 Nov 2000 12:32:35 -0700 (MST)
Message-Id: <200011071932.eA7JWZw11028@baskerville.CS.Arizona.EDU>
Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000 16:38:45 +0000 (GMT)
From: Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng <hgs@dmu.ac.uk>
X-Sender: hgs@atlanta
To: Icon Group <icon-group@cs.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Why Perl?
Errors-To: icon-group-errors@cs.arizona.edu
Status: RO
Content-Length: 1661
Things that make Perl attractive include:
* Many commands look like unix commands (grep, sed, awk all rolled
together). This produces a feel of familiarity. Things broadly do
what you expect.
* It has improved the regular expressions available in those commands
* Access to many system level features (stat, sockets...)
* Wide portability must be somewhere in the list.
* Actively developed.
That is why it took off before Perl5.
Things that count against Icon:
* Goal directed execution with backtracking is "hard" to understand.
Disagree? OK, why hasn't Prolog taken off like other languages?
This is also not a "normal" execution model for shells, either, so
there is more learning to do.
* Development on Icon has basically stopped. Unicon is another matter,
but I'm not on that list, yet.
* Poor access to file system.
* Execution model seems odd -- not compiled to native code, not
interpreted-then-run like Perl, nor like Python "picks up the compiled
form if newer than source". Getting the libraries and executables
in the right place was counter-intutuitive when I setup Icon.
* Too high level? This may be strange, but for daily tasks Icon's power
doesn't seem to fit. It would be great for doing things with directory
trees, but it dons't have stat.
Of course, the arguments run the other way as well: things wrong with
Perl, right with Icon, but that is not the question. I wish Perl had
string scanning, because sometimes regexps are not the way to go.
Now, if the above is factually wrong, I'l accept correction, but that I
have these perceptions says something in itself.
Hugh
hgs@dmu.ac.uk