Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!convex!tchrist@convex.COM From: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) Newsgroups: alt.sources.d Subject: Re: Perl may be great, but... (was Re: uutraffic report (in perl)) Message-ID: <3384@convex.UUCP> Date: 22 Nov 89 22:30:13 GMT References: <4025@mhres.mh.nl> <1194@radius.UUCP> <3273@convex.UUCP> <1989Nov22.153901.3503@splut.conmicro.com> Sender: news@convex.UUCP Reply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX Lines: 24 >Just as net policy should not be made on the assumption that everyone >has rn (because it's not standard), programming should not be done on >the assumption that everyone has perl. There is no "standard" newsreader, is there? I'm not sure: I was so delighted with rn after gagging on readnews and vnews years ago when it came out that I've not forgotten whether "readnews" is actually standard. And "cut" and "paste" aren't standard, and "sh" or "awk" with functions aren't standard. Few C library functions are standard. Until POSIX boxes us all into a tight, conformant little cubicle, there'll be no true universal standard. I maintain that you can do nearly nothing at all if you want to be utterly standard, whatever that really means. It's a great tribute to perl that it runs on as many machines as it does. Guys, it's getting awfully close to time to move this discussion off to alt.religion.computers, don't you think? --tom Tom Christiansen {uunet,uiucdcs,sun}!convex!tchrist Convex Computer Corporation tchrist@convex.COM "EMACS belongs in : Editor too big!"