[SunRescue] RE: Solaris 1.1 on a 4/330

[Dave McGuire]

On January 14, David Cantrell wrote:
> Whilst perl isn't the most efficient language in terms of CPU cycles and
> memory, it is a lot more efficient than (eg) C in terms of programmer time
> for most people*.  And considering that programmers are more expensive than
> computers, it's fairly obvious which way organizations are going to jump**.
> It really is true now that a lot of problems can be solved by just throwing
> hardware at the problem.  It ain't elegant but it does the job.
> 
> For someone going it alone on their personal server, then seeing that
> they're not going to get a great deal of traffic, they can write their
> dynamic pages in an interpreted language and get away with it regardless
> of whether they're using the latest turbo-nutter-ninja-bastard machine
> or an SS2 like what I am.
> 
> * - I know all about the problems of managing development teams, and
> IME it's not noticably worse for any one language compared to any other,
> despite what people say about perl programmers.
> 
> ** - perl isn't fast enough for all jobs of course.  That's why the
> company I work for (Kokua Communications, kokuacom.com) writes some stuff
> in C.  But it's very clear that even good C programmers have a lot more
> problems than good perl programmers.

  I'm going to be very careful here.  My comments weren't intended to
start a flame war.  They were statements based on my experience as a C
programmer.  I agree with some of your points and disagree with
others.

  Being a "student" of computer science (someone who studies computer
science, not someone who goes to school for it) and having devoted
most of my life to the advancement of the computational arts, I do not
use Perl, and I strongly recommend against its use for SOME things,
but NOT ALL things.

  I've been a C programmer for 15+ years; because to that my opinions
sometimes come across a little too strongly.  I apologize if it
ruffled your feathers.

         -Dave McGuire