holy war (was: Re: [NCLUG] speaking of high school)

[Sean Reifschneider]

On Tue, Feb 13, 2001 at 11:58:37AM -0700, mike cullerton wrote:
>so, do y'all find something you like (perl, python, whatever) and usually
>stick with it and learn it well? do you try to find the right tool for the

Programmers *ALWAYS* use different tools for different jobs.  A
general-purpose language will allow you to do more of those things
in it, rather than switching between a number of application-specific
systems.  However, in many cases it just isn't suited for the task.

For example, try using Perl or Python as your shell...  Kinda sucks...
The various shells were optimized for a very particular purpose.
You'll probably be talking SQL if you want to get to a database.
Your system has a browser interface?  Add HTML to the mix...  Need
I mention regular expressions?

Application-specific languages will always be more efficient at doing
the things in their domain than a general-purpose language.

One could almost say that the ideal for a general-purpose language is
to glue together the application-specific components.

Sean
-- 
 "The great thing about Meat Loaf is he's his own special effect." -- J.S.
Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com - Linux Consulting since 1995. Qmail, KRUD, Firewalls, Python