Re: [vox-tech] Uses for Perl

[Ted Deppner <ted@psMAPSyber.com>]

On Fri, Jun 08, 2001 at 09:50:08AM -0700, Jeff Lambert wrote:
> I know Perl is widly used for various tasks but I'm wondering if it is worth
> learning now that there are other languages like PHP.  Can anyone give me some
> things that Perl can do that PHP can't?

In broad strokes...  one of PHP's main focus' is the web development area.
PHP and Perl both do web stuff well, each with some significant trade
offs.  The choice between the two is usually decided by "what's already in
place", or what "the core developer likes".  

If you're looking for a "robust language" you can use on any current UNIX
system, easily find libraries for Tk/Tcl, communicate with MySQL, Oracle,
Sybase, etc, and do more "application development", "glue code", or "data
mangling" with, then you're probably looking at Perl.  Yes, PHP can do
many of those things, but perl (IMHO) really shines at them.  Perl has
some interesting data structures that make dealing with odd data easier,
though a PHP OOP guru might argue for PHP.

I don't think there's any doubt that UNIX and Perl are tight, whereas WEB
and PHP are tight.  Both are excellent languages, and there's a lot of
crossover.  If you're not primarly concerned about the web development
aspects, I'd suggest perl.

-- 
Ted Deppner
http://www.psyber.com/~ted/