Re: [xml-dev] parsing markup with Perl

[Gareth Oakes <goakes@gpslsolutions.com>]

> From: Hans-Juergen Rennau <hrennau@yahoo.de>
> Date: Sunday, 9 February 2014 6:01 am
> Subject: Re: [xml-dev] parsing markup with Perl
>
> My experience with Perl is positive, to put it mildly: using it as a
> preprocessor for XML processing - as an XMLifier I would call it.

I had a similar positive experience transitioning a customer from Ventura
Publisher (!!) to an XML-based authoring/CMS/publishing system. We built
Perl
scripts to interpret Ventura markup and express the content in an XML form.

We also had another project where database extracts were converted to XML
via
Perl. Again, positive experience.

As far as the intersection between XML and Perl goes, I think that sort of
thing has to be the sweet spot. I wouldn't want to use Javascript for that
sort
of text processing. I have also been quite disappointed in Javascript's XML
features. E4X, for example, is a waste of time.

My negative thoughts about Perl as it relates to XML processing:
- special syntax means a large learning curve
- sheer variety of syntax and special effects make code difficult to
maintain
  (especially for non-trivial codebases with many contributors)
- "toolbox" of features gives the uninitiated just enough rope to hang
themselves

My positive thoughts about Perl:
- powerful, fast, cross-platform
- big community, lots of modules, CPAN
- regex support is amazing

Cheers,
Gareth