Perl is the most supported scripting language

It’s time to talk about the old mercedes that’s going to get a bad reputation. This mercedes is perl.

I enjoyed several articles I found on reddit.com and several guys start to compare perl with php but you can’t compare Perl with PHP because PHP is popular due to its easy deployment. Create a text file “foobar.php”, enter some code and it’s ready for the WWW. Speaking of Perl web applications, deployment is rather bad just as bad as with ruby or python.

Don’t get me wrong. I own a server where I run several mod_perl2 web applications and deployment was easy because setting up mod_perl on a dedicated server _is_ easy.

I also ran and run some perl web apps over fastcgi which is easy to set up, too if you know what you are doing and if you know your business in general but the whole process compared to deploy a php script is completely different. Now consider people just having some shared web hosting account. In most cases you won’t find a decent mod_perl2, dbd::whatever etc… on that host. In fact most bigger shared webhosting providers don’t even offer mod_perl at all. What they only offer is “cgi scripts” which means perl over plain CGI and this is a KO for perl in this case. I wouldn’t consider perl as the language of choice as well in this case…just because there is no practical reason.

I can even understand the shared webhosting providers because setting up mod_perl2 for mass hosting can be an impossible task and I think it wasn’t even thought about of when mod_perl was developed. I know one big shared webhosting provider who is running mod_perl2 and I can confirm that it runs but I think it’s just because no one else uses it :P. I won’t name the provider here because I can’t recommend it…I used to store my personal photos there but I also tried out the “features” of the provider…doesn’t matter here. I start to believe that mod_perl2 was only installed because the distribution did it “accidentally” at setup because they ran a very old version of dbd::mysql and when I asked them to update this package they never did it so I think they just relied on the packages redhat offered them…dbd::mysql 3.02 or similar they had installed which couldn’t handle stored procedures…

One other web framework for perl is mojo which I can recommend because it’s another way to build a reliable web app in perl but still…
I don’t think a web framework like mojo will help perl to become more popular just because perl coders are already out there and if you can’t find them it means they are already hired for good money. And existent perl coders know the quality of perl and that’s not the language syntax or the super-idiot-proof regex ;). No, it’s simply the ability of doing anything you want with perl. Hack some small scripts to do task A or task B…no problem! Write some complex web app with mod_perl2+some other web framework. Yay, no problem, too. You don’t like framework A? Well, choose framework B, it’s available! Just kick your browser to search.cpan.org and you’ll find something, I promise.
You need to develop a graphical user interface? hell, no problem, choose wxperl e.g…

So for myself I can say that perl is the most supported scripting language available. I can do almost anything with it and I can do it fast. I also have a lot of experts available in the WWW that are willing to help even when problems are really special. What it lacks for web apps is the “plug and play” functionality that php e.g. offers. “put script a in directory b and just run it”. It doesn’t matter for me as long as I can run a dedicated server for myself. If I had to use a shared hosting account though, I probably would switch to php for web apps. That’s for sure and why? Well, just because I have to choose the right “tool” for the right “job” and situation. The situation then would be “no fastcgi’ied perl, no mod_perl”…au revoir in _that_ case :). I don’t think I have to choose shared webhosting again but who knows.

And please don’t believe people when they say that perl is dead or in the process to die…it’s not. <– a dot, do you see that? :).

Kind regards,
Andreas.