Why did you choose Perl as the programming language for HoloDraw?
I chose the Perl language for several reasons, not the least of which was familiarity. However, some other advantages include: • Perl is interpreted. This means you have no hassles keeping track of source code vs. compiled code. You always know you are looking at the same version of source code as what you are running. You don’t have to worry about recompiling, make scripts, huge cryptic link and load commands, etc. • Perl was born under Unix and therefore is well integrated with Unix features like standard input, standard output and standard error. Unix integration was also a design goal for HoloDraw, making Perl a natural choice. • Perl is free. • Perl comes preinstalled on many distributions of Unix. • Perl is very strong at manipulating strings, which is the bulk of what HoloDraw does. Not wishing to fuel a language war, I will acknowledge that other languages provide many of these features and some may even have better features of their own.
