Re: [MacPerl] beginner's q...

[Brian McNett <webmaster@mycoinfo.com>]

Chris Nandor, <pudge@pobox.com> wrote:
>I would not want an editor written in Perl.  I'd rather have an editor
>written in C (or C++, Pascal, Objective C, etc.) with Perl hooks.  I cannot
>imagine:
>
> 1. writing a text editor to replace a cool one that exists now

True. Once you have an editor that rocks, you stick with it.  That's why 
vi and emacs have lasted so long in Unix.  Most folks simply can't 
imagine BETTER, and don't think about replacing the existing tool!

> 2. writing a high-performance text editor in Perl at all (my guess is it
> would not be very fast, and until GUI hooks get better, the GUI wouldn't
> look very good or perform very well)

Also true.  My reasons for porting the WASTE API has little to do with a 
need for a high-performace text-editor written in MacPerl.  I have no 
need or desire to create such.  However, once WASTE is available, one 
side effect is that such a tool will be slightly less improbable.  The 
need for speed in software is rather quickly overtaken by faster 
hardware.  I remember writing MACHINE CODE, and HAND OPTIMIZING, when I 
wanted something to run fast.  Who does that anymore?  C?  Bloated and 
slow by comparison.  Shoot, now you hardly ever see folks doing work in 
assembler!  Hand-optimized code? Speed and efficiency is clearly a matter 
of perspective.

An editor written in Perl is not impossible, and probably won't STAY slow 
or mangy looking for very long, but NOT with the current crop of 
hardware, and CLEARLY not with anything obsolete!  In short, I'm with 
you, Chris.

> BBEdit could have better MacPerl support, but that is mostly dependent on
> MacPerl.  I'm looking forward to the possibilities presented by a Perl
> shared library, allowing BBEdit (and other apps) to have a perl plugin to
> directly access MacPerl.  That's what CodeWarrior does now.  The perl CW
> plugin is available in CW Pro 5.  It has some problems, but it kinda works.
> Alpha could do the same thing, too.  That is assuming a MacPerl shared
> library becomes a reality (which I am really hoping for, and may in fact
> happen).

Yup, shared libraries in general are the "right thing."  Of course this 
sidelines a lot of legacy hardware (non PPC and non CFM68K), but you 
can't put MacPerl 5.20r4 on a Mac Classic anyway!  I'm eagerly looking 
forward to this as well.

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