Perl Programming in the Modern Web?
November 7, 2010
I recently got an email from a student learning web design (and some basic web programming) … and he said something like this:
I took a web design course and the syllabus only taught Perl …
Wow! They are still teaching Perl!
Perl (is not) part of the modern web … for the most part.
Yes Perl is a powerful language and yes it is still used by a shrinking number of die-hard zealots. But these days, you have a few other languages that are just so much better suited for today’s modern web design and programming:
- PHP
- Ruby
- Java
… And there are more.
Perl’s power without its’ weakness.
Perl’s power was largely found in something called regular expressions – RE (as nerd’s call it,) can process and parse text like nothing else. It is tricky to use but so powerful it is, that most … if not all modern programming languages have it built-in now. So Perl’s secret weapon is now gone and all you are left with is the weakness.
To Perl or not to Perl?
No question, just go to PHP or Ruby for your server side programming. Although I think for web designers, PHP is the top choice.
CIAO,
Stefan Mischook
killersites.com
