Re: [Bug-gne]Programming the front/backend

[Hook]

Bob Dodd wrote:
>
> --- Tom Chance <address@hidden> wrote:
> > On this writing the software note, who here in the
> > list (apart from Jimmy, I know you can do it but
> > you're busy with Nupedia!) can program in Perl,and can
> > use things like a mySQL database, mod_backhand... that
> > sort of stuff? Becuase I assume (false assumption?)
> > that we will be using that sort of technology in the
> > final solution, so it'd be good to work out who's
> > going to be able to do it. I am learning Perl, and
> > have been writing morcels of code necessary (basically
> > just taking the input fields and sticking them into a
> > file for now... haven't got onto database access of
> > yet!). Anyone else?
> >
> > Tom Chance
>
> Actually, I used to do Perl for a living...  I worked for Control
> Data's e-business division for a while, and we used Perl to tailor our
> X.500 directory services and mailhub to customer requirements. Mind
> you, we're going back a few years here to the days of Perl 4 :-)) We'd
> moved on to Perl 5 before I left, which was an improvement of sorts.
> Like the way -18C here in Helsinki last week was an improvement on the
> -23C we had the month before...(automatic variables, shock horror :-))
>
> To this day, I still don't understand the enthusiasm people have for
> Perl. I know it's "free", that there's a big set of libraries
> available, and that the camel looks kind of cute, but still... A year
> of working 10 hour days reverse-engineering, fixing, and extending
> other people's write-only Perl scripts is no joke, I promise you.

But there again, *any* language can be write-only if you get a bad enough
programmer. I've done the same kind of job with C, and wanted to take a
blunt instrument to the originator.

Some things ought to be a capital offense.

Paul