Re: [MacPerl] What are MacPerl's capabilities

[bart.lateur@skynet.be (Bart Lateur)]

On Wed, 07 Apr 1999 09:40:52 -0500, Robert Pollard wrote:
>I have looked at MacPerl and read the manual to a point.  I am impressed
>so far but I have a couple of questions:
>1) How far can MacPerl go in allowing me to use the Mac Toolbox to do
>things like display a window with the ability to enter into fields any
>information I want and store it in a database of my own design?

Sorry but I have to disagree with Chris on this one. Methinks that
MacPerl is a poor choice to build user-interfaces in. That stage is
still, huh, "under construction".

Now, talk about grabbing data from web forms or report logs, and putting
the data into a data base, or the reverse, getting data from a database
and generate HTML files on the fly (for example), now *that* is really
something that MacPerl (huh, "Perl" in general) really excels in. If you
ever need to do data manipulation, there's no time wasted in learning
Perl anyway.

>2) If so, does MacPerl hide the Mac Toolbox enough that I don't have to
>be a C/C++ programmer to use it?

It's still not obvious. It's a bit easier than in C/C++, but not much.

>3) What resource is their for understanding the OO portion of MacPerl.

Ah. Maybe Tom Christiansen's stuff, like PERLTOOT (included with Perl?),
or his articles available on www.perl.com (Is there a "Far more than you
ever wanted to know... about objects"?). Learning by example, i.e.
checking out how standard Perl modules use OO, could help a lot. Also,
check out reference.perl.com (there is a link and a search engine on the
homepage of www.perl.com) which may contain links to online tutorials.

>I don't want to buy books and programming tools for MacPerl unless it
>will meet my needs.  Currently I work with 4th Dimension and Oracle.  I
>would like to have an alternative to 4D for developing front ends.

Hmm... "front ends" is one thing I don't use Perl for. I'm not saying it
can't be done, but it definitely isn't amongst MacPerl's stronger
points. Yet. :-)

Wel, just one guy's opinion.

	Bart.

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