Re: Advanced scripting languages (was: Learning Ada83)

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

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"Kevin Cline" <kevin.cline@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:e749549b.0409041928.67714f9b@posting.google.com...
> "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote in message
news:<taKdnQ2WrI_qn6TcRVn-sA@megapath.net>...
> > "Bj�rn Persson" <spam-away@nowhere.nil> wrote in message
> > news:7g2_c.102478$dP1.364156@newsc.telia.net...
> > Marius Amado Alves wrote:
> >
> > >>> It would also be useful and practical to learn one of the advanced
> > >>> scripting languages like Perl or Python or Ruby....
> > >>
> > >> Wow, they're *advanced* scripting languages now!
> > >
> > >Sure, a *lot* more advanced than bat files. ;-)
> >
> > That's funny, because if it's complicated enough that I can't write a
batch
> > file to do it, I'll generally write it in Ada. Bat has If and Goto, and
that
> > is enough for simple tasks. Beyond that, I want to be able to fix it and
be
> > able to insure that it works...
>
> Strong typing is handy, but it's not enough to ensure that something
> works.  Ada has it's strengths, but it's not the tool for every job.
> Why would you spend an hour writing 50 or 100 lines of Ada code when
> five minutes and a five-line Perl script would do the job?

Because it would take a week to learn Perl well enough to use it that way.
And it is very rare that such a program is never used again; my one
experience with Perl showed it to be a write-only language (it took me two
weeks to successfully modify the code that runs the CVS on the ada-auth.org
site). And it is very rare that I need to write a 100 line throwaway
program; most of my code has much more permanence than that. Summary: It
doesn't make sense for me. YMMV.

                           Randy.