[Israel.pm] Perl for C, C++, C#, Java, COBOL and VB programmers

[Omer Zak]

This is a cool concept, Perl for Programmers or Perl for Programmers'
Productivity.

1. Parse source code and locate all uses of an identifier, dereferencing
   indirect references to it (such as usage in aliaes, using C++ class in
   which the identifier names a member, pointers, etc.).

2. Go through source code and locate all idioms matching a certain pattern
   (for example, to go over 600 function calls, and ensure that all of
   them got the right extra argument).

3. Sophisticated template mechanism.  You write parameterized boilerplace
   code (my favorite example is the Symbian OS applications, all of which
   contain 4 boilerplace classes), run your Perl script with arguments,
   and the boilerplace code gets expanded into actual code.

4. Creation of tables of constant data used by your software.

5. Representation of Unicode strings (in UTF-8, UCS-2 or UCS-4 encodings)
   in source code, where the compiler does not correctly support them out
   of the box.

6. (Generalization of (4),(5) above:) Code which initializes special data
   structures, where the target language does not offer a convenient way
   to perform this (for example, if you want to represent strings in a
   C/C++ program by length+text rather than by zero terminated text).

TAR&FEATHER DISCLAIMER:
I use Python for some of those tasks.  But Perl is suitable, too.

                                             --- Omer

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On Wed, 10 Mar 2004, Gabor Szabo wrote:

>
> I am thinking about developing a one-day course for C, C++, C#, Java,
> COBOL, VB etc. programmers.
>
> The idea is that while all these programmers will not replace their
> programming language by Perl due to whatever reasons their management
> have, theycan in fact improve a lot their work environment. They can
> also do lots of things with Perl that will help their development.
>
> As a quick example there was a question about how to fix a VB file
> in a recent post see
> http://www.perl.org.il/pipermail/perl/2004-January/003989.html
>
> My only problem (is it really a problem :?) is that I am not
> programming daily in any of those languages. This means I only have
> guesses what could be those time consuming task these people need to do,
> where Perl can help.
>
> So here is where I need your help. There are lots of people in here who do
> program in the above languages. So what task could you delegate to Perl
> which don't go into the final product ?