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Re: data manipulation / sql server / business applications

by sundialsvc4 (Abbot)
on May 01, 2011 at 16:14 UTC ( [id://902359]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to data manipulation / sql server / business applications

In my 30+ years in this business, I consider programming languages to be tools, and I’m always interested in finding a new one that approaches some useful set of problems in some new and useful way.   It’s very important what your professional tool-box will contain, and it will never consist of only one tool.   But I daresay that you will find, as so many others have already found, that Perl will become “a well-worn tool, picked-up again and again and again.”   I myself was a latecomer to Perl, and I regret that.   It’s not the only tool that I use, but Perl has certainly become a hands-down favorite for tasks big and small.   (Especially those “small” tasks that become big.)

The reason is that Perl is a practical, pragmatic language that was born from a well-felt need to do a time-consuming task better than any other tools could do at the time.   It is also well-supported by the CPAN library (http://search.cpan.org) which, at this particular moment in time, has “67,491 Uploads; 22,520 Distributions; 92,835 Modules; contributed by 8,929 Uploaders” (including a great many people that you will find on a very regular basis right here).   This is an extremely impressive set of tools indeed, all of them well-tested and free, and generally cross-platform so that you can move from one type of hardware to something altogether different, and still be able to use the same tool in the same way.   (In the words of the credit-card commercials, “Priceless.™”)

In short:   invest the time to become familiar with this language, and with this web-site.   Your effort will be promptly and richly rewarded.   There is indeed “a practical, pragmatic reason” for “what all the fuss has been about, for such a very long time now.”

P.S.:   As for what will be the tool(s) that are ultimately used in the pad-computing space, I believe that it is really a bit too early to tell yet.   This is just the most-recent game changer to surface, and at this point developers are being invited to write platform-specific applications in platform-specific tools (e.g. Objective-C).   I know from experience that this won’t be the way that the game ends, because what developers ultimately need is cross-platform capability.   But it is not yet clear to me which tool(s) will dominate.   What I do know, however, is that “one size does not fit all,” and that it can be a mistake either in the short run or the long run to try to “wedge” a tool into a particular hole.   There will always be many tools in your box, and the ability to work fluently with many tools is always going to be a skill that is prized.   If you find yourself waiting on the sidelines wondering “which one will win,” you might be Waiting for Godot.   Keep your head up and your eyes wide open, and always make it a point to at least sample whatever’s on the new dishes as they pass by.   You might not care to eat them, but at least know what they taste like.

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