Re: Cygwin vs. Active State Perl Install

[Asim]

This is a tough one, because I understand why your programmer is pushing cygwin. It compiles many Perl modules that need a C-compiler, for one. That can make a difference in any number of things, including how easy it is to upgrade and fix bugs in older versions of modules.

However, I tend to lean towards recommending ActiveState's version of Perl for Windows. If he's the only expert on cygwin, and especially if he's the only guy who's savvy on Unix and Unix-like Operating Systems, the act of compiling modules will be up to him. ActiveState's PPM bypasses much of the "Makefile + 3 makes" stuff, making it more useable for the person beginning in Perl. Mind you, the cpan shell(s) that are "native" to Perl are almost as easy and reliable as PPM, but when they break, they tend to break hard.

Also, ActiveState puts a lot of work into developing Windows-specific modules. Although you can use 'em with cygwin's Perl, they are usually already there with ActiveState, and well-supported by them. I've developed rather involved and complex Windows login scripts with these ActiveState modules, and found them to work well.

All in all, I'd vote for the ease of ActiveState's implementation over the edge in compatibility that cygwin gives you, especially if you're working mostly on Windows systems. I totally understand your programmer's good intentions, yet think he might consider who'll have to support this, in the long run.

Does that help? If you tell us more about what the DOS programs are doing, we might be able to give more detailed commentary.

[yburge]

Most of our batches read and/or update Oracle data warehouse tables (this is an insurance company), and produce reports for the accountants, policy producers, executives, etc.. For example, one batch produces a list of clients to whom lapse notices need to be sent; another produces billing statements.

[Asim]

Ah, OK. I've never worked w/Oracle via Perl, however it's one of the strongly-supported DBs, usually via the DBD::Oracle module and it's "descendants". A quick check with my local Activestate install (w/the latest version) vs. the CPAN Search Site shows the ActiveState PPM versions of Oracle modules are up-to-date, so you should be great there!

If I might offer two pieces of advice? Once you feel solid with basic Perl, I'd recommend starting with Programming the Perl DBI -- I wish I still had my copy! After that, and if you're looking to build a really strong toolset, Perl has developed some powerful tools for making code-based database queries really simple. I'd recommend learning a tool like Class::DBI or DBIx::Class; it's heavy at the beginning for a beginner, but you'll eventually be able to write very simple code in a "robust" fashion to do your queries.

I hope that helps you guys out! Good luck!

[poqui]

We use Oracle here and I am one a very few perlers at my company; but I used Active State and very successfully, so much so that I convinced my Sysadmin to install the oracle DBD and DBI on our sun box.

Cygwin on the other hand is much more difficult to get working, and I never did manage to get the DBI on it.