X-Recipient: archive-cygwin AT delorie DOT com
X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
From: Andrew DeFaria <Andrew AT DeFaria DOT com>
Subject:  Re: Wish Setup would accept my Perl
Date:  Wed, 07 Nov 2007 09:10:53 -0700
Lines: 35
Message-ID: <fgso2e$r8u$1@ger.gmane.org>
References:  <loom DOT 20071105T183528-568 AT post DOT gmane DOT org> 	 <fgq3au$q89$1 AT ger DOT gmane DOT org> 	 <183c528b0711060821u278c0775of56ba7e004aaf180 AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> 	 <001501c82094$434e4230$2e08a8c0 AT CAM DOT ARTIMI DOT COM> 	 <31b7d2790711060907rf21e581j742ff91897a65cc2 AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> 	 <fgsmhd$l1h$1 AT ger DOT gmane DOT org> <183c528b0711070758n766febe4g7c6efe735501da8e AT mail DOT gmail DOT com>
Mime-Version:  1.0
Content-Type:  text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding:  7bit
User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (Windows/20070728)
In-Reply-To: <183c528b0711070758n766febe4g7c6efe735501da8e@mail.gmail.com>
X-IsSubscribed: yes
Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
List-Id: <cygwin.cygwin.com>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:cygwin-unsubscribe-archive-cygwin=delorie DOT com AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Subscribe: <mailto:cygwin-subscribe AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Archive: <http://sourceware.org/ml/cygwin/>
List-Post: <mailto:cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Help: <mailto:cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com>, <http://sourceware.org/ml/#faqs>
Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com
Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com

Brian Mathis wrote:
> How about if you are writing a Windows application? What if you need 
> to manipulate the Registry or access Win32::OLE objects? You certainly 
> need AS Perl for that. It's not hard to imagine why you'd need a 
> Windows-centric version.
Then you are obviously and decidedly writing non-portable code.
> Portability is not the be-all, end-all purpose of an application, and 
> eschewing it is not necessarily laziness. 
Portability was the issue I was describing. If you wish to talk about 
writing non-portable stuff then granted using something like AS Perl 
will actually help you achieve that goal. Have fun. Oh, and BTW I was 
speaking specifically about instances in my career where people have 
unwisely eschewed portability only to have it bite them in the ass later.
> It's actually pretty low on the list of priorities. Normally "getting 
> the job done" is higher on the list. For most people, the goal of 
> scripting is to accomplish a task, like data processing or automation. 
> Each of those goals is almost guaranteed to interact with some other 
> proprietary part of the system that is also not portable. That's the 
> difference between coding an app and scripting. Scripting is more 
> often the glue between other parts.
Those are the words of somebody who lacks vision and thinks only in 
terms of the problem directly before him.
> That's not to say that you can't also write a portable, full-blown 
> application in Perl, but that's coming from a different perspective. 
> Maybe that's where the differences lay here, in the perspective.
A Perl application or script or even glue code need not be "full-blown" 
to be portable. Portability is a function of seeing a specific task to 
do and doing it in a way that will work on multiple platforms. It's the 
opposite of a proprietary solution. That does not automatically mean a 
little script has suddenly become a full-blown application, rather it 
means that a script was written with more than one environment in mind.
-- 
Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>
Music, I suppose, will be the thing that sustains me when I'm too old 
for sex, and not quite ready to meet God. - Dolly Parton


--
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/