Re: [MacPerl] What are MacPerl's capabilities

[David Steffen <steffen@biomedcomp.com>]

Robert:

In reply to:

>does MacPerl hide the Mac Toolbox enough that I don't have to
>be a C/C++ programmer to use it?

>What resource is their for understanding the OO portion of MacPerl.

>Currently I work with 4th Dimension and Oracle.  I
>would like to have an alternative to 4D for developing front ends.

>I don't want to buy books and programming tools for MacPerl unless it
>will meet my needs.

I am not the C or Perl programmer that some of the folks on this list are,
but I do have lots of work writing database front ends in general and using
4D in particular.  My experience has lead me to the following conclusions:

  MacToolbox from MacPerl is easier than MacToolbox from C, but that is not
to say that it is easy.  It is much (Much MUCH!) harder to use the MacPerl
MacToolbox to create a database front end than it is to use 4D.

  IMHO, (Mac)Perl's strength is text processing.  MacPerl's toolbox
routines, while greatly appreciated, do not yet make it my front end tool
of choice.  Similarly, Perl is not my favorite object environment; when I
want objects, I use Python.  YMMV.

   Mac's weakness in memory and process management impact MacPerl relative
to Unix Perl; you can easily run out of memory in MacPerl, and the only
solution is to quit MacPerl and manually (and semipermanently) allocate
more memory to it.  You can only run one MacPerl program at a time.
(Similar limitations apply to MacPython; I use MacPerl alot, Unix Python
alot, but rarely use MacPython.)

   My experience with all software tools is that books are about the best
investment I can make.  The cost of a book for a tool I don't use is
dwarfed by the cost of even a small investment of my time.  MacPerl, Power
and Ease is a wonderful introduction, especially if you haven't worked with
Perl a lot (and even if you have; it puts all the Mac-specific stuff
together very nicely).

-David-

David Steffen, Ph.D.
President, Biomedical Computing, Inc. <http://www.biomedcomp.com/>
Phone: (713) 610-9770 FAX: (713) 610-9769 E-mail: steffen@biomedcomp.com



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