Re: Is there ever a time Perl is the wrong choice?

[fokat]

Well, for the last ten years I've probably written upwards of 50,000 lines of Perl and less than 500 lines of C/C++. I've been working in consulting and developing services at ISPs. Mind you, I wrote a RADIUS server, DNS server and part of an Email server in Perl. And many, many miscellaneous scripts in between. Like the ones I use to apply "configuration templates" in a network with hundreds of routers.

Could I have written all of this in other languages? Sure. But then I would have to multiply those lines by a factor of at least 4.

But I digress towards Perl's strengths. Certainly, there are times when you cannot afford some of the Perl's intrinsic tradeoffs. Or perhaps, times where you don't want to distribute your source code along with your executable. Those are the two only scenarios I could think (in my area of work) where Perl could be a second rate solution.

BTW, ++ to Marza for bringing such a (IMO) good and polemic question to the table.

Best regards

-lem, but some call me fokat

[steves]

Ah ... but you can distribute your proprietary source code by encrypting it and using a decrypting Perl source filter

[theorbtwo]

No, you can't. You can obscure your source code that way. Any means of distributing your program such that it still goes through a normal perl compile-to-optree, execute-optree cycle means that the source code is still available for the compiler to turn into an optree. This means that a properly motivated person could get your source code back.

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Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

[PodMaster]

ByteLoader anyone? Yeah I know it's still experimental, but ....

Java is compiled into bytecode, doesn't make the source any more secure ...

Same goes for compiled programs , sure they're more obscured but you can turn it into asm real easy, and that's source code ...

Has anyone recovered perl sourcecode from ByteLoader? I don't know (what was my point? right, nothing is safe, bytecode is possible)

MJD says you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo! ** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.