Re: Larry Wall for President! (or at least voting systems in Perl...)

[ggg]

As dragonchild pointed out, this is not a Perl vs C issue. Many of the e-voting machine makers opted for a less expensive approch and left out things like printers (for a paper trail), battery backups and robust OS. Some machines acually use Windose.

The problems are all (OK, how about mostly?) in the basic design philosophy the companies started with. Just be thankful that, under those conditions, they didn't use perl!

[radiantmatrix]

> this is not a Perl vs C issue

Sorry, I wasn't trying to make it one; but, the reference to a particular language made me think about how this would be accomplished in my favorite language. That's all.

My preferences aside, I think C isn't the greatest choice for this application, as it is more difficult to maintain secure, reliable code on a short time schedule. Remember that the voting machines must be very maintainable on short notice, because new voting laws sometimes get passed weeks before an election.

> The problems are all (OK, how about mostly?) in the basic design philosophy the companies started with. Just be thankful that, under those conditions, they didn't use perl!

On that point, I will agree. But, considering this is PerlMonks, a Meditation on writing a voting machine system in C or Java seems somewhat out-of-place. ;-)

[ggg]

Sorry if I seemed a little terse, rm. I've dabbled in both C and Perl, but have no idea which would be best for any given job.