Re: In Defense of Perl

[JavaFan]

can you please help me come up with some *objective* bullet points in defense of continuing to use Perl?

• You go to perlmonks for objective bullet points? Right...
• If you cannot come with reasons to use Perl, I think you've already lost your case. It's your manager, your department, your website. Explain to him why you used Perl. After all, your reason are likely to be different from mine.
• I mostly use subjective reasons to determine which tool to use for which task. Primary reason to pick X over Y is, "I know X, I don't know Y". I don't think there's a more subjective reason. Neither do I think it's wrong to have subjective reasons.
• At least I got you bulletpoints.

[Stegalex]

Don't make me engage in a flame war with you, JavaFan.

Yes, I come to Perlmonks for objective bullet points because it's worked in the past for me (although you always have to filter out people who insist on monologuing). I *can* come up with points of my own, it's just that I like to cast a wider net and get the opinions of others (probably not a skill you are familiar with). Subjective reasons aren't something I bring to management.

One of the things I would like to do is to point out large, commercial websites that are still running Perl. I know that Amazon.com used to run Perl, but I doubt that is the case today.

Which big sites run Perl?

Thanks.

[moritz]

Which big sites run Perl?

• http://slashdot.org/
• http://www.imdb.com/
• http://www.123people.com/
• http://www.booking.com/
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/

(Updated: added BBC)

[Herkum]

A few big web sites,
• Amazon
• NY Times

[pemungkah]

Yahoo!'s deployment systems are hugely dependent on Perl.

[Your Mother]

Ticketmaster too. Amazon still uses Perl extensively; in the early days it was C and Perl and in house stuff, then a *lot* of Java came and a little Ruby in and some Perl went out, and then Perl staged a bit of a come back.