Re: Perl vs Java - your feedback, not flames

Just to extend what Nishi says, here is my personmal experience....

My previous organization was a job site coded in perl. Performance was ok...
but after optimizing the database and adding a few more servers, there was a
tremendous performance jump. Further, a new feature that got added later on
was coded in Java, and that is when we started facing performance issues.
Java simply has a huge footprint and this slows down a moderately loaded
server.

GIven a choice I would opt for perl, even though finding resources may be a
wee bit difficult.

Cheers,

Subhasis

On 9/21/05, Stefan Neilson <stefan-WRMZ5ucGVl6yOEGR9GKf/wC/[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Thank you so much....all advice is much appreciated
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ilugd-dev-bounces+stefan=3Dblueprintcorp.com-cunTk1MwBs8/[email protected]
> [mailto:ilugd-dev-bounces+stefan=3Dblueprintcorp.com-cunTk1MwBs8/[email protected]=
g]
> On
> Behalf Of Kapoor, Nishikant
> Sent: September 21, 2005 7:58 AM
> To: ilugd-dev-cunTk1MwBs8/[email protected]
> Subject: Re: [ILUGD-Dev] Perl vs Java - your feedback, not flames
>
> > On Wednesday, 21 Sep 2005 04:22, Stefan Neilson wrote:
> > > Read this articles on your site and how a couple of
> > questions. This form
> > > was completed in 2004 and I am wondering how java has
> > changed since then. I
> > > have a part ownership in a software development company.
> > Currently all of
> > > our software is built in perl. With the lack of perl
> > resources there has
> > > been discussion about moving over to Java. I wanted to get
> > some advice
> > > outside our office on the differences and benefits between
> > java and perl
> > > and if it is worth the cost of moving to java.
> > >
> >
> > Making a company wide programming language policy is not a
> > wise policy. You
> > choose the language based on the work to be done.
> >
> > It is unlikely that you will use Java for day to day
> > scripting work on the
> > shell or in cron jobs. On the other hand, in making
> > applications Java is at
> > least as much useful as Perl. Both can do more or less
> > similar things, both
> > have extensive libraries to fall back upon for missing
> > functionalities. You
> > should get a lot of Perl folks in the job front. Which lack
> > of resources are
> > you talking about?
>
> A while back, I needed to make a decision to choose between Perl and Java
> (servlets), and I went with Perl. In fact, the original posting that
> Stefan
> quoted originated from me. Now that I have gone through this, I think I
> have
> a good understanding of the main differences between the two.
>
> We work on many projects, some of which are in Java, some in Perl, and a
> very few in PHP as well. For us, finding Perl expertise has been
> difficult,
> whereas Java (and PHP) programmers are much easier to find. However, I
> personally am not a big fan of Java, simply because it has a huge
> footprint,
> and a long code-compile-test cycle. Perl, on the other hand, is a
> lightweight, has a fast code-test cycle, and is a big help in so many
> administrative routines that we need for project maintenance that are
> otherwise not (direct) part of the project.
>
> The major concern that I have seen raised whenever Perl Vs Java discussion
> comes up, is scalability. It seems to me that people doubt if Perl can
> scale
> well when it comes to coding BIG projects i.e. projects involving datasets
> with millions of tuples. People also seem to be skeptical about Perl's
> performance (execution speed). My personal experience has been that Perl
> can
> handle such projects with equal ease. We have database tables with
> millions
> of tuples, and have not had any performance issues caused especially as a
> result of using Perl. Our performance issues have mostly been due to
> improper 'join', or tables not appropriately indexed.
>
> This is just my personal point of view. Selecting one platform over
> another
> requires many other factors to be considered, in addition to measuring
> technical differences. Company's long term policy, supervisor's perception
> about one or the other, are some of them.
>
> Regards,
> Nishi
>
>
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