Re: Python or Perl for a Debian maintainance project?
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 01:21:23PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote:
> Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > The principal difference being that $@ is a string, while the exception
> > raised in Matthias' is a real exception. This means that various error
> > conditions can be handled programmatically, rather than aborting with an
> > error message.
>
> $@ can be an exception object if you want it to be. perldoc -f die
And see liberror-perl for a module which adds all the try, catch,
finally syntactic sugar and the root of an exception hierarchy.
Now that I'm posting anyway, I might as well react to the rest of the
thread...
Perl is a full-blown language, with a rich history and culture. Yes, you
can learn a subset pretty quick if you know shell, C, or awk.
It can also be very maintainable, object-oriented and all. That doesn't
magically happen though. Perl doesn't transform a (cgi) scripter into an
OO architect all by itself.
Learning the language also means accepting the seemingly weird symbols
like $_, $@ and <=>. I can still remember wondering what the hell the
repeating repetition and the squigly mean in C++'s
Myclass::Myclass() {}
Myclass::~Myclass() {}
but I accept them. You don't have to like it, you can just use another
language. But don't accuse the language of being unreadable or
unmaintainable just because you don't want to learn it.
Getting back to the OP's problem, what language to pick for a new
project:
Look a the communities surrounding the languages. www.perlmonks.org is
particularly helpful in the perl world. Browse search.cpan.org to see
what libraries are available. Witness the extremely good support you get
from the perl5-porters mailinglist when you manage to find a bug in perl
itself.
But by all means: try them out. You're lucky to be able to choose
without prejudice.
--
Bart.
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