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PERL SUcks?

stanley
Novice

Jul 19, 2001, 9:36 AM

Post #1 of 9 (1794 views)

PERL SUcks?	Can't Post

I NEED HELP TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION FROM MY JAVA ORIENTED BOSS

1) Does PERL support threads?
2) Is PERL suitable for an enterprise application?
3) What is the load that PERL can take? How many concurrent users can it support up to? (In theory, if it is using threads, it should be unlimited.)
4) Why PERL and not JAVA or Microsoft Components?

Okay I need the answers and supportive documents/links from reliable sources. Please help.

stanley
Novice

Jul 19, 2001, 11:14 PM

Post #2 of 9 (1778 views)

Re: PERL SUcks? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Ohhh...nobody can help me? Please PERL programmers!

mhx
Enthusiast

Jul 20, 2001, 12:12 AM

Post #3 of 9 (1777 views)

Re: PERL SUcks? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hi Stanley,

I'll try to give an answer to this.

1. Yes, Perl supports threads. However, threads are still considered an experimental feature in Perl. (Perl Threads)

2.-4. I cannot give you specific answers on that. I guess you have to wait for someone that has more Perl experience than I do on this specific topic. Anyway, I can give you some links that may be of interest:
Comparison of Perl, PHP and Java for server side scripting (not quite what you want, but compares Perl and Java in some way)
Comparison of C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Rexx and Tcl (run time, memory consumption, development time, reliability, code size)

Sorry I can't give you more detailed help on your problem. Hope this helps anyway.

-- Marcus

Code

s$$ab21b8d15c3d97bd6317286d$;$"=547269736;split'i',join$,,map{chr(($*+= 
($">>=1)&1?-hex:hex)+0140)}/./g;$"=chr$";s;.;\u$&;for@_[0,2];print"@_,"

abstracts
Novice

Jul 20, 2001, 2:25 AM

Post #4 of 9 (1773 views)

Re: PERL SUcks? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hello.
1. Perl does support 2 experimental thread models today. Interpreter threads will become a standard in perl6. Notice however that perl has been successfully deployed in many areas without the use of threads especially on unix based systems.
2. Definition of enterprise application? Or a more appropriate question is: what application will you use perl in?
3. Here again, what do you mean by lead? What are you benchmarking? And btw, even with threads, there is a limit set by the operating system. "unlimited" is a word I'd never use. Now there are sites that use perl for their backend and some get huge number of hits (don't remember what slashdot's recent top count is). Perl has also been deployed in governmental (US Air-Force, Sweden's Pension System) and many industrial areas. Check out
www.perl.com/pub/p/Article_Archive for a listing of some places where perl was put in good use.
4. "Freedom" Read last week's discussion on p5p.

You need to read lots of articles written on this subject. I don't have a link right now but I guess they're not hard to find on perl.com.

Hope this helps,,,

Aziz,,,

Jasmine
Administrator / Moderator

Jul 20, 2001, 8:39 AM

Post #5 of 9 (1767 views)

Re: PERL SUcks? [In reply to]	Can't Post

For your #2, check out "Perl Success Stories" on O'Reilly, which shows how various organizations have used Perl for their extensive and necessary applications.

Such organizations include the U.S. Census Bureau, Sweden's Pension System, NBCi, Amazon.com, and even the U.S. Federal Reserve Board.

Cure
User

Aug 6, 2001, 9:22 PM

Post #6 of 9 (1700 views)

Re: PERL SUcks? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Java IS SLOW.................................................

Jean
User

Sep 11, 2001, 5:41 AM

Post #7 of 9 (1628 views)

Re: PERL SUcks? [In reply to]	Can't Post

I love Perl, but is Java really slower than Perl ?
(Please, do not hit me on the head, no-o-o-o-o....... ;-)

Jean Spector
QA Engineer @ mSAFE Ltd.
jean.spector@softhome.net

mhx
Enthusiast

Sep 11, 2001, 7:25 AM

Post #8 of 9 (1626 views)

Re: PERL SUcks? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Depends. For low-level operations (e.g. adding or multiplying) Java is faster. For high-level operations (e.g. regular expressions) Perl is faster.
Following the link in my earlier post in this thread, you can find a document where several scripting and non-scripting languages, including Perl, are compared (runtime, memory consumption, development time, program length, program reliability, etc.). This comparison marks Perl as being the fastest of the scripting languages, and being faster on the average than Java. Python seems to be just about as fast as Perl, and still faster on the average than Java.

-- Marcus

Code

s$$ab21b8d15c3d97bd6317286d$;$"=547269736;split'i',join$,,map{chr(($*+= 
($">>=1)&1?-hex:hex)+0140)}/./g;$"=chr$";s;.;\u$&;for@_[0,2];print"@_,"

brentdax
stranger

Oct 23, 2001, 1:07 PM

Post #9 of 9 (1546 views)

Re: PERL SUcks? [In reply to]	Can't Post

1. Yes, Perl supports threads. 5005threads are older but pretty unstable and will probably go away soon; ithreads are newer (you'll have to wait until 5.8 comes out to get a solid implementation) but are more stable and easier to work with. Both are considered experimental.

2. Depends what you mean. Some people prefer stricter languages when they're doing projects with multiple programmers; however, many large and important sites use Perl. I seem to remember someone joking that they assumed any site that didn't say otherwise ran on Perl.

3. Once again, depends on what you mean. I can point you to fifty important sites that use Perl. Slashdot is probably one of the most-hit ones. One of the things about Perl is that it doesn't place arbitrary limitations--its limits are the system's limits.

4. Many reasons. First of all, Perl is totally free. Nobody can lock it up tight and force you to pay for it. If there's a bug, you can always go into the source and try to fix it yourself. It's basically owned by the community at large, not a corporation.
Second, Perl has staying power. Perl is older than Java and is still gaining ground. When OO becomes less cool, Java will have trouble adapting to the Next Big Thing; Perl has already made the jump from structured to OO programming, thus proving its flexibility.
Finally, Perl has the CPAN. Where do you go when you need a Java class or a Microsoft component to do X? If you need a Perl module to do X, the CPAN is sitting right there at www.cpan.org. You can almost always find what you need there. Java and Microsoft have no real equivalent.

--Brent Dax
brentdax@cpan.org

"When I take action, I�m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt." --Dubya

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