Re: Perl versus VB

[thezip]

Alas, I program on a daily basis with both Perl and VBscript.

I find that VBscript is useful for ONLY the most trivial applications, due to:

• the lack of complex data structures -- there are no HOH's, AOH's; in fact, there aren't even hashes! As a result, data access is often convoluted and doesn't really fit what I would consider a reasonable/maintainable solution
• a low quality support system -- it's very difficult to glean information for those M$ obscurities (these are plentiful, BTW)
• the fact that it feels like I'm driving one of those damned Autopia cars at Disneyland -- its not *really* driving, but the kiddies all think it is...

Perl now, feels like I'm driving the Monorail. It's sleek, robust, and easily takes me to where I want to go. (sorry for all the Disneyland analogies...)

I find that I can prototype things quicker, and I never run into language limitations. I can't count how many times I've started coding something in VBscript, only to trash the code and redo it in Perl.

The other confusing thing about M$ is that things just don't work like they're supposed to. Regexes, subroutines, modularization, etc., just feel wrong (weak, unnatural, <insert your favorite pejoratives here>)

Where do you want *them* to go today?

[Wysardry]

I have to point out that VBScript is a severely limited subset of Visual Basic. It would be fairer to compare VBScript with PerlScript, or Visual Basic with Perl.

Which brings up a point that nobody else has mentioned so far - Visual Basic is not suitable for use in programming Web applications.

That's a severe limitation for most people these days.

[batkins]

um, actually, perlscript is exactly the same as perl, except that it supports ASP-like <%..%> syntax. so there you go.

[Wysardry]

Perhaps I should have specified client-side PerlScript versus VBScript.

Server-side PerlScript seems to be fairly pointless unless the author has some sort of phobia against coding without ASP/Cold Fusion style tags.

ActivePerl does need to be on the system too, after all.