in reply to Program size and effeciency.
I have asked my boss inorder to rewrite the code in effecient way. But he is saying that PERL is not for effeciency, It is only for getting things to be done.
What i want to know is, How important is program size related to the effeciency of the project?. Does it meant that what My boss saying is true?
It some ways your boss is completely correct. The point of a Perl program, or a program in any other language, is to get the job done. A nice neat program that doesn't do the task it was written for is of no use to anybody.
At the moment you have a working program, and your boss has finite resources. What's the better decision for your boss:
- Spending resources on tidying up something that already works?
- Spending resources on a problem that's not been solved yet?
The decision is a fairly easy one to make :-)
Would it be better to have written a more structured program in the first place - yes. It makes later maintenance much easier.
However, since it's now a done deal I wouldn't touch it until you need to change what it does. At that point you can then clean it up incrementally as you make changes. There is no point spending resources now to tidy something up that may never need to be changed.
However, if your boss is implying that Perl programs are naturally more inclined towards quick and dirty solutions rather than efficient well structured programs then he is incorrect. You can write efficient well structured Perl with very little effort.