Re: [Groff] PDFPIC macro

[Deri James]

On Thu 18 Sep 2014 19:13:44 Keith Marshall wrote:
> Hmm.  Perl.  I've always shied away from it, particularly on MS-Windows.
>  I know there are implementations available, but my experience of
> attempting to deploy them has always been extremely unpleasant and
> discouraging.
> 
> I'd much rather have seen an implementation of gropdf in C/C++; I'd even
> be willing to attempt a translation, but I'd need guidance because my
> knowledge of perl, as a language, is absolutely non-existent.
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> Keith.

I think that perl projects which rely on complex module interrelationships, do 
struggle on windows platforms, particularly where there are underlying C 
libraries with perl bindings, but if you are just using perl as a scripting 
language with no external dependencies, I can't see a difference to other 
scripted languages such as the Bourne shell.

Certainly I have seen gropdf being used in a windows environment and I have no 
reason to believe the subset of the code used to retrieve the MediaBox of a 
pdf document would not work equally well.

I'd be very happy to give assistance in understanding the perl code, if you 
want to give it a go in C++. 

Deri