hello, I often hear (particularly from fresh graduates) that PERL is somewhat obsolete and not being used much for web design. But I come across several web sites that still use PERL, particularly with MySQL. If PERL is indeed getting obsolete, which is the preferred language that is taking the place of PERL (for all practical purposes)? Does PHP serve the same functionality as PERL and replace PERL in the near future? Do web designers still use PERL for new web sites, and continue to support web sites designed with PERL?

Thanks.

Dunno, I'm using ASP.NET and it is really up-to-date and modern. That workes superb for me. But PERL is free (Apache) and ASP.NET is for IIS (MS). You can also see PHP as the next generation PERL, however it is different.

The CGI and PERL language (CGI = PERL..) is aged, and modern web designers use smarter languages with more features, and stuff.

You can use cassini ( http://www.asp.net - http://www.asp.net ) or many other free web servers (cold fusion MX has .net built in but its not free) for asp.net sites. You arnt forced to use IIS.

Mart.

Well, it is a very good web server in my opinion, and you don't have to pay for it you know.. ()

Perl was originally a string parsing language that was a useful extension to unix shells as it had the ability to both be an executable, and to run other executables. It had a high degree of integration into the unix Os. If you knew Unix and shell, you knew how pearl worked. It has limited object oriented capabilities and some security problems that you needed to be aware of and work around. PHP has taken it's place for most web work, although PHP's object capabilities are still limited. Python is a better srting parsing language than Perl.

IMHO, Perl had a steeper learning curve for newbies than PHP. But many of us came up with Perl form Version 1.0 and use it a lot - kind of like GNU editor - if you know it, it's great. If you don't know it, there's better stuff out there.

Right, but Perl is way slower than PHP, at least, the PHP sites that I visited outran the Perl sites in speed.

The sites were using an equal kind of script, without many unneeded code.

Hi All,

Ok first ASP is easy to use and learn but has the disadvantage that it needs MS Windows to run on.  Perl on the other hand (and others, PHP) can run on most platforms.  I use Perl not only for this reason, but also it is extremly easy to integrate it with admin tasks on a Linux box.  From what I have tested, Perl runs at exactly the same speed as PHP or Python.  From talking to other webmasters I know, they also prefer Perl to any other language.

Perl is by no means out of date.  It probably has a wider range of add-ins than any other language available.

I would love to see a pole on the prefered serverside scriptin language.....

Nick

Alright

Diep-Vriezer wrote: Right, but Perl is way slower than PHP,

Very true. Pearl was originally used as part of a Unix admin's bag of tricks. Used for quick and dirty's, but was highly capable/extensible and good enough to do some production stuff for users. You'd use C for the high volume/resource programs. Perl never started out with the intention of being hit by a thousand web users.

NickBits wrote:   It probably has a wider range of add-ins than any other language available.

Dont think so .net has more than 2000 (or it might be 4000 i always forget)

Mart.