[ale] Servlets Vs. Perl

[anewton at ecotroph.net (Andrew Newton)]

Here are some of my observations.  We have teams of web programmers, one 
does Perl and the other does Java.  And I've done both myself, though it 
isn't what I do now and I have to say that I have more experience on the 
Java side.

*) The larger projects with larger teams seemed to go better under Java. 
  However, the smaller stuff could always get done faster in Perl.

*) We've never worried much about security with the Java side of things. 
  That's not to say it can't happen.  We've also found that architecting 
multi-tiered systems (usually for security considerations) was easier 
with RMI, CORBA, and things like mod_jk.  On the other hand, we've had 
more than one incident where a bit of Perl code didn't get tainted and 
somebody exploited it.

*) Some of the MVC stuff Java people try to layer on web apps is a pain 
and doesn't really match the semi-stateless request/response nature of 
the web.  Consider alternative Java tools such as Velocity.

-andy

cfowler wrote:
> I have a flame war I want to start.  I have been using perl to test some
> of my C code.  I see all the goodies that one can do with perl in a CGI
> environment.  What is the real benefit of perl over Java or Java over
> perl when it comes to web apps?  It seems like you can do much what Java
> can do in perl.
> 
> Chris

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