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From: wengland@stephsf.stephsf.com (Bill England)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: What is perl?
Message-ID: <441@stephsf.stephsf.com>
Date: 30 Oct 90 02:09:26 GMT
References: <1990Oct27.000801.5853@ecn.purdue.edu>
Organization: Stephen Software Systems, Inc., Tacoma WA
Lines: 45

In article <1990Oct27.000801.5853@ecn.purdue.edu> wscott@ecn.purdue.edu (Wayne H Scott) writes:
>
>I get asked that question all the time.  The problem that I never seem to
>be able to give an answer that does it justice.  After I tell them 
>something like,... it is a scripting language that combines the power
>and usefulness of sed, awk, shells, C, and several other utilitys... 
>they act like it is a complicated mess that is not worth learning.
>
[...]
>_______________________________________________________________________________
>Wayne Scott             |  INTERNET:   wscott@ecn.purdue.edu

  The problem might be trying to explain Perl in Unix terms to non 
  Unix users.  For instance if talking to Unisys users Perl could 
  be explained as a very good WFL language but, without the bugs 
  and with more power/control.   When explaining Perl to IBM'ers 
  tell them that the same thing execpt substitute JCL for WFL.

  DOS users of course are used to thinking about .bat files.

  I believe that Vax users use "at" files for job execution. ( I 
  Could be wrong here, its been quite a while since I touched a 
  Vax or PDP.)

  Mentioning sed, awk, sh, C, etc. can confuse users and MIS managers who 
  have never programmed under Unix.

  When explaining Perl to new Unix users I let them know what Perl 
  will do for them and make sure that they are able use some system 
  administration programs written in Perl the same day that perl is 
  installed.

  Another thought I have had, is to refer to Perl less as a scripting
  language and more as a programming language.  Calling an elaborate
  piece of Perl software a 'script' does not seem to do justice to it.



 +--------
 |  Bill England
 |  wengland@stephsf.COM
 |
  * *      H -> He +24Mev
 * * * ... Oooo, we're having so much fun making itty bitty suns *
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