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From: mcdaniel@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: How are YOU using perl?
Message-ID: <42400006@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu>
Date: 21 Apr 88 02:09:00 GMT
References: <235@ateng.UUCP>
Lines: 42
Nf-ID: #R:ateng.UUCP:235:uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu:42400006:000:1857
Nf-From: uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu!mcdaniel    Apr 20 20:09:00 1988


Larry: thanks for your prompt reply.

I recently tried to use perl for a large program.  I chose perl rather
than C because of perl's good string handling facilities and built-in
list processing facilities.  I rapidly discovered that, while perl is
good for short programs (up to 100 lines or so?), trying to do longer
programs, or more complicated ones, becomes painful.  The most
noticable:

1) there is no way to declare local names.  To avoid name collisions
in "sub"s I was prefixing names with the "sub" name, which lead to
lines like

	for ($SWAP_i = 0; $SWAP_i < $#lru_buffers; $SWAP_i++)

2) If I make a typo in a variable name, I get no compiler- or run-time
notice except for wrong answers.  Icon has a partial solution: an
option makes all new variables start with a special <undefined> value,
which causes a run-time error if used before setting.  This gets many
of the cases, but you can still sometimes use a typo-ed name on the
LHS of an assignment without warning.  Only declarations can catch
those.

For a short program, all the identifiers are there in front of you,
and it's easier to see and avoid such problems.  Furthermore, perl's
typelessness (which I like) and lack of declarations help---you can
get off the ground without all the overhead of typing (in either
meaning of the word).  But after 175 lines of perl, I decided that
putting up with C (despite mucking about with <string.h> and sscanf
and malloc and pointers and . . .) was easier.

However, I *will* use perl in shorter applications.

-- 
Tim, the Bizarre and Oddly-Dressed Enchanter
Center for Supercomputing Research and Development
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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