application and web app technologies

[cartercc at gmail.com]

> It might help if you elaborated on what these "doubts" are. It doesn't sound
> like you know any of the languages you've listed and are hoping that somehow
> you'll find one magical beast by cross-posting to a bunch of groups. I don't
> expect you're going to have much luck.

No, we don't know any of these languages. I'm reasonably competent in
Perl, and I have used some Java and Python (and taught C++ a loooong
time ago but have never actually written any C++). The problem is that
none of us can compare apples to apples, even though we more or less
can do what needs to be done with the tools we know.

I don't expect the 'magical beast.' What I do expect is several posts
along the following lines: 'We faced a similar situation, and used X,
Y, and Z. X proved the best choice because of reasons A, B, and C. The
problem with Y was D and the problem with Z was E.'

> That said, Perl is still one of the best choices for both Web and admin
> scripting, and I don't see that you'd gain anything by rewriting all of your
> existing code to Ruby or Python just for the sake of saying you now use Ruby
> or Python (not that there's anything wrong with either, but why rewrite code
> for the sake of rewriting it?).

I agree with you about Perl, and CPAN is a fab resource, but the reason
we need to rewrite the code is because (1) it doesn't work (due to
external changes) and (2) it takes us less time to write new routines
that it does to decypher the old ones and modify them. Besides, I work
in an academic setting, and when people ask you what you use, I have
learned to cringe when I reply, 'Perl.'

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