From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2000-06-18T11:57:48-05:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:03506] Re: Ruby to call commands, e.g. "find , perl  scripts , nmap , and others" is  thispossible?

Jim <jovecka@dallas.net> writes:

> I am trying to use nmap to test my own network and automate the
> process.  I keep seeing perl being used for this type of work , but
> was hopping that may be ruby could do this with out all the lines of
> code needed for perl. Is perl a better choice than Ruby for this?

I don't want to get into a Ruby vs. Perl discussion, but I can offer
some observations:

1. Ruby and Perl offer roughly the same set of facilities for
   accessing system commands and their output. Ruby is slightly more
   convenient, as the popen method returns both sides of a
   bi-directional connection in one IO object, while Perl's IPC::open2 
   sets up two separate objects. However, if you need IPC::open3, then 
   Ruby's version is the same as Perl's.

2. Ruby's regular expression matching syntax is as easy to use as
   Perl's. However, string substitutions are different (not
   harder--just different ;-)

3. Creating classes and objects is considerably easier in Ruby. This
   changes the style of programming you use. In Perl, I tended to keep
   things in hashes of lists of lists of ..., or to use Struct.pm. In
   Ruby, it's easy to slap in a new class to represent some entity,
   and then add methods to that class as you need. As programs grow,
   I'd say Ruby code will be more maintainable than Perl (and I've
   written 10,000+ line programs in both).


So, for small tasks, I'd probably say that there's not much to choose
between them. If one language has a library you need and the other
doesn't, then your choice is probably made for you.

For larger tasks, I'd suggest investing the time becoming familiar
with Ruby.


Regards


Dave