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000152_icon-group-sender_Wed Nov 8 08:49:24 2000.msg
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by baskerville.CS.Arizona.EDU (8.11.1/8.11.1) id eA8Fmws00884
for icon-group-addresses; Wed, 8 Nov 2000 08:48:58 -0700 (MST)
Message-Id: <200011081548.eA8Fmws00884@baskerville.CS.Arizona.EDU>
From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Rafa=B3?= Maciej Sulejman <rms@poczta.onet.pl>
To: icon-group@cs.arizona.edu
Subject: Re: Why Perl?
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 03:38:10 +0100
Errors-To: icon-group-errors@cs.arizona.edu
Status: RO
Content-Length: 2695
On wto, 07 lis 2000, you wrote:
Is Perl really a satan's invention?!?! I don't think so... It's
better to Perl than to VB (if you can't S4). Icon isn't even a
real Perls opponent in this fight... It's rather a fight between VBS
and Perl...
What _YOU_ have done for spreading Icon/S4 more widely?
The power of Perl is in Perl's community, not in language itself.
Sure - there are some freeware (or even open sourced) I/S4 products,
why there are only 9 (!) sites when I try to search "Snobol4" using
Google.com? Many years ago I found a DOS Snobol4 version (Catspaw's
one) in shareware store. Few years ago I downloaded Phil Budne's
Snobol4 sources... Good stuff, but without any real end-user
documentation. There is of course Mark Emmers excellent
tutorial for Vanilla Snobol, but it covers merely 75% (YMMV) of the
language functionality.
Finally - remember - Linux isn't a "niche OS"anymore.
I know - fighting the "industry" standards is hard (see M$) but is
worth doing.
> Things that make Perl real 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.
Sure!
> * It has improved the regular expressions available in those commands
Sure!
> * Access to many system level features (stat, sockets...)
Sure!
> * Wide portability must be somewhere in the list.
The portability of S4 is even wider :) I can "port" it on a single
floppy (both Unix and DOS version.
> * Actively developed.
It's _really_ true.
> Things that count against Icon:
>
> * Development on Icon has basically stopped. Unicon is another
matter, > but I'm not on that list, yet.
You can always try OmniMark ;)
> * Poor access to file system.
Damn right!
> * 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.
Now I'm wearing my asbestos.... ;)
--
--Rafal Sulejman <rms@poczta.onet.pl>
--Gdansk, PL