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0 pointsSir_Cmpwn7y ago0 comments

>Perl is installed by default on common operating systems.

Aye, but what about the uncommon ones? For your consideration, I'd like to share Perl's configure script:

https://github.com/Perl/perl5/blob/blead/Configure

It's my favorite configure script of all time, but I would hate to be the guy who has to extend it with a new platform :) And I have!

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3 comments · 1 top-level

username2237y ago· 2 in thread

This is something I love about Perl: in an age of many subtly incompatible operating systems, Perl said "F it, we'll do what it takes to compile and run your program everywhere." People don't appreciate this now, when everything is Linux, Mac, or Windows, but back when you regularly had to deal with various BSDs, HPUX, AIX, Mac OS 9, and even the occasional VAX, Perl was a godsend.

hpcjoe7y ago

$_ =~ s/was a/is a/g;

There, I fixed it for you.

Seriously, I see so many ways of re-inventing these wheels, written in the fad languages/systems d'jour. Perl works very well, for a large subset of tasks that are common.

The same code that ran 25+ years ago (in perl4) on my Sun and Irix machines, runs today on my laptops in linux, MacOSX. I remember building Perl atop the Cray J90 running Unicos in grad school, as I had built run automation software in it (not a queuing system, but code to encapsulate some of my runs and return the relevant data). I had developed that code on my OS2 based desktop with Perl.

Perl is a go-to language. It gets stuff done. Without pain.

snazz7y ago

And even though Perl grew up on and for Unix, there are a couple of distributions that work good on Windows, too, even though I think Perl feels more at home on Unix, where it came from.

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