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Re: What hurts you the most in Perl?

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From:
David Golden
Date:
November 24, 2010 04:26
Subject:
Re: What hurts you the most in Perl?
Message ID:
AANLkTi=8qfAY0E=J1hPB+bgJSaCiSE1hSdsBeuAOq2t3@mail.gmail.com
On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 7:01 AM, Gabor Szabo <szabgab@gmail.com> wrote:
> The other day I was at a client that uses Perl in part of their system and we
> talked a bit about the language and how we try to promote it at various events.
>
> Their "Perl person" then told me he would not use Perl now for a large
> application because:
>
> 1) Threads do not work well - they are better in Python and in Java.
>
> 2) Using signals and signal handlers regularly crashes perl.
>
> 3) He also mentioned that he thinks the OO system of Perl is a hack -
>    that the objects are hash refs and there is no privacy.

Out of curiosity, do you know what version of Perl they were running?

With respect to #1, I'd like to see more energy around lightweight
processes.  E.g. what can we steal from Erlang.  Parallel::Iterator is
a nice example of what can be done using processes instead of threads,
but it's not a general solution.

With respect to #3, it doesn't sound like a technical objection, but a
style objection.  There is pretty much no privacy in perl at all -- it
has nothing to do with objects. Even inside out objects can be
"defeated" with PadWalker.  I think the only option to overcome an
objection like that is to attempt to demonstrate the benefits of
flexibility to choose the right OO system for a particular purpose.
Need stronger encapsulation, look at Class::InsideOut or
Object::InsideOut.  Want a powerful (if slowish) post-modern OO
framework, choose Moose.  Etc.

-- David

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