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

[Jason Elbaum]

Gabor Szabo wrote:

> 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 ?


First, there are certain Perl-suitable tasks which do go into the final 
product, but not the main executable. I'm thinking of configuration 
management scripts, especially in Unix environments. These might be used 
to identify the correct executable for the current platform, or to 
configure environment variables needed by the binaries, or to make sure 
the dynamic libraries can be found at runtime. Other Perl tasks could 
include installers - generally, anything commonly done with shell 
scripts / command files. Under Unix, much commercial software does come 
packages with Perl scripts, since it can rely on Perl's presence.


On the development side, Perl is great for managing automatic regression 
tests, for configuration management in conjunction with makefiles, for 
prototyping, for system management.


I've recently used Perl in a production system. The system was (still 
is) written in C++ and Tcl; I tacked on Perl code to rapidly extend the 
application's capabilities while maintaining flexibility, using each 
language where it is strongest. (Any interest in a talk on the subject?)


Jason Elbaum