From: Christopher Browne Date: 2002-09-08T05:11:49+09:00 Subject: Re: Larry Wall's comments on Ruby In an attempt to throw the authorities off his trail, W Kent Starr transmitted: > On Fri, 2002-09-06 at 15:45, Andrew Hunt wrote: >> >>>had to replace their Java-based e-commerce solution in order to >>>efficiently scale up. (My contact solved their problem with >>>perl/MySQL.) >> >> Interesting. What was the specific issue that killed them? In >> other words, was it badly written Java, or just the fact that it >> was Java? > Was it badly written Java? I never saw the source code, of > course. But I do know from other experiences and contacts that badly > written Java is not too difficult to achieve, especially in a crunch > (which nearly everything e-commerce related tend to be.) The only > thing I -do- know is that the Java app failed (with costly results) > and the open source solution saved the day. I think the Perl guys got it right, as far as the ideal quote is concerned; I believe that it was Larry Wall that observed, more or less, that "There's not a problem with Y2K-compliant Perl code; the problem is whether or not the _programmer_ is Y2K-compliant." Badly written _anything_ is certainly possible, and this is particularly true when a particular technology reaches the point in its adoption where it reaches what might be called "gratuitous popularity." XML and C++ and Java and Perl have _all_ had points in time when they have achieved "gratuitous popularity," and at _that_ point, you start getting books like "XML for Incompetent Buffoons," and you get incompetent buffoons _doing_ XML/C++/Java/Perl. It is entirely likely that the problem can be primarily attributed to "incompetent buffoons." Unfortunately they tend to get attracted to "hot" technologies in much the way bugs are attracted to outdoor lights at night. -- (concatenate 'string "cbbrowne" "@ntlug.org") http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/internet.html Rules of the Evil Overlord #66. "My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system."