Re: Perl in the Enterprise

[talexb]

.. and a snazzy IDE

Well, I'll pick up on one thing mentioned here .. the snazzy IDE is very handy when you're still learning the language and are writing programs one line at a time. I consider myself more advanced than that, and write programs several paragraphs at a time. If I have a syntax error, it's because I mis-typed something, and not because I don't know how map works, for example.

I'm quite happy (and not the least bit ashamed) to use the Perl debugger to step through some of my programs (an installer that's over 2000 lines comes to mind) to make absolutely sure the variables contain what I think they should contain, and that the program flow is what I thought it should be.

It's the same approach I used to write rock solid C code for many years -- compile and lint to get absolutely all of the warnings out, then step through the code in the debugger to make 100% sure the code's doing what I expect.

For run-time debugging, I use Log::Log4perl -- this tool will also confirm that my code is doing what I expect it is doing, once the typos have been dealt with.

What is 'mission critical' anyway? Can something be earning the company money, yet not be categorized as 'mission critical'? I've got lots of Perl in my family of a dozen or so servers; if they stop working, my employer's infrastructure stops. People's lives don't depend on it, but certainly the company's financial life depends on it.

I think Perl plays a larger part in running critical servers than people realize, but because it doesn't come with an endless supply of well-coiffed salespeople with lovely shiny briefcases, beautiful suits, an avalanche of product literature and soothing MarketSpeak, Perl lives under the radar for a lot of people.

[gregor42]

the snazzy IDE is very handy when you're still learning the language and are writing programs one line at a time.

I'm sorry but I'm forced to respectfully disagree with this statement. IDE's are not a good idea for people who are still learning a language. I've said it before & I'll say it again - you never learn how to code faster than by doing hand to hand combat with the command line: be it with an REPL, interpreter, or compiler.

An IDE can become a crutch for someone still learning syntax - especially with code completion tools. For someone who knows what they're doing - they're power tools.

I know there are plenty of people who still say things like: "real men use vi" I too love vi. I use it all the time - at the command line, to do fast corrections or configurations. To do heads-down development I use IDE's. (I'm a big fan of Eclipse & I too use EPIC) Why? I have found that they can help me be more productive. If you don't find any benefit from using them - by all means don't. But neither should anyone begrudge someone else for finding their own benefit in practicing different ways. (Not that I'm accusing you of that. I'm speaking generally.)

Further, of late there has been more work done in the merging of Modelling applications with IDE's. In OOP circles these days you find more and more UML functionality actually being tied to code generators & parsers, rather than simply drawing tools. This is also something that could easily become a misleading distraction to a beginner, but represents a powerful toolset to senior developers and architects.

[adrianh]

Well, I'll pick up on one thing mentioned here .. the snazzy IDE is very handy when you're still learning the language and are writing programs one line at a time. I consider myself more advanced than that, and write programs several paragraphs at a time. If I have a syntax error, it's because I mis-typed something, and not because I don't know how map works, for example.

Of course there's a lot more to a modern IDE than syntax checking. Decent refactoring support for example. Something I sorely miss in the Perl world. Fortunately nice people are working at making that better ;-)

[wazoox]

There's Devel::Refactor which does quite a nice job refactoring you code. I think it's integrated to EPIC, and I personnaly use it with NEdit and a quick macro.

[adrianh]

There's Devel::Refactor which does quite a nice job refactoring you code

Well, it does a nice job of extract method..... and that's it. Compared to what IntelliJ and Eclipse give the average Java developer that's not a lot :-)

Fortunately Adam's work with PPI refactoring editor will hopefully open up more interesting possibilities in the future.