Re: So Whatcha use perl for anyway?

[ait]

This is the story of my professional life:

I always offer the solution to my clients in Perl first. Many times they say Java and I respectfully walk away...

They are usually bewildered by this and ask me to sit down. I explain to them that I am unwilling to work with Java and prefer Perl, two hands down. It caches their curiosity, and many times they believe me but still insist that I can't do it in Perl (arguing about the lack of Perl programmers). If they comprimise for PHP or Ruby, Lisp or C, I take the job.

As a side note, PHP is actually a good thing for Perl. It is very popular and it gives you the opportunity to sell Perl as the real thing ;-) . It is much easier to evangelize a PHP crowd than a Java one.

During the project, the use Perl becomes inevitable, of course ;-] So I start by making Perl scrips that make the project more and more dependent on Perl (meaning I get at least CPAN installed on the company servers, this is a major victory!). ETL is usually a good place to start, I mean, every project requires some sort of data transformation and loading.

Load testing is usually another place where I plant the Perl seed. Stuff like www mechanize and alike usually do the trick. Little by little I evangelize the client on Perl, whilst the Java freaks start pulling all the papers and studies on how Perl is dead and Pathfinder uses Java and all that crap. I don't usually fight them directly, but with impresive results, which the Java teams rarely accomplish. Meanwhile, Perl silently spreads like weed...

In the end I end up using at least 30% Perl in every project, hoping that next time I'm called to the negotiation table I will have a chance to do a pure Perl project. Has happened only once in the past 2 years, but I am sure that my strategy will have its fruit eventually.

Oh, and BTW, I don't do Windows projects either.

[dsheroh]

That's much like the story of my professional life as well, save that I mostly deal in smallish projects which tend to be requested in PHP, so I say "I can do that faster, better, and cheaper in Perl" and they generally say "OK", so I rarely have to actually write/modify PHP code more often than once every couple months and can stick with Perl aside from that.

As for what I do with Perl...

• Web apps
• Logfile analysis
• Dynamic firewall rules based on what's found in those logfiles
• User accounting and workstation management for an internet cafe
• Web scraping
• Spam header analysis
• Scanning for "hidden messages" via equidistant letter spacing
• Automating system administration
• Fun
• Profit
• Impressing the hell out of the ladies clients

[KurtSchwind]

I'm totally with you on the Java and PHP front. We spent several months trying to bring Java into the mix. We've spent twice that trying to get rid of it completely. (nearly there). Java was a disaster for what we were doing.

All I wanted were some simple web pages talking to a database. I brought in very highly recommended Java experts. They had me with Hibernate and Springs and a host of other things (including using Eclipse as an editor). I asked them to do a few pages. The pages worked and then they showed me how many files were involved in the process. I nearly gagged. It was WAY over-engineered.

We pitched that and went with PHP and cranked out the app even with the delay we suffered from trying to go the Java route.

I'm not trying to dis Java. I just know it isn't for me, and I can usually out-code a Java person in terms of time and robustness. The only 'selling' point Java has in my company over Perl is that Java has become 'The Standard' (tm) so we have a million so-so java developers we can throw on a project. *sigh*

Good luck with the perl evangelizing. I hope it pays off in the end. Oh, and I haven't had to do anything in Windows for 10yrs+.