In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jensen Kenneth B Sra Afpc/Dpdmpq) writes: >Little more background,... I just PCS'd to this organization last September, >coming from a previous assignment where the systems were actually up to date >(kind of, purl 5.6.1) . Started learning the systems here and saw they were >doing some things in shell scripts that perl could do MUCH faster and >reliable. To demonstrate that I rewrote a long and overly complex ksh script >(ksh '88) that was 221 lines into perl. The perl script ran in about 45 >seconds... Where the shell script took 2-3 hours. > >Since that wasn't enough, I'm looking for some eyebrow raising evidence that >not upgrading could/will be detrimental to the systems here. But then again, >I may just end up shooting myself in the foot and have them respond... "well >don't use perl, use sh". Which is also out-dated on these systems. > >Honestly, I don't think the servers here have been patched/updated in 10-15 >years.
Present a cost/benefit case. Figure the TCO for the ksh scripts and compare with Perl *5* (much better than Perl 4). Use the ratio of source lines as the comparator for development and maintenance. It's close enough and they'll buy it. You can get help here on making scripts incredibly brief if you use the magic word 'golf' :-) Compare the performance costs by showing how you could use cheaper hardware or postpone upgrades. Show what could be done that isn't currently possible; there are so many things that Perl can do that ksh can't I wouldn't know where to start. I agree that the security ploy is dangerous; I am unaware of security problems with ksh or sh. Check CPAN. Quite probably some operations that your scripts spend hundreds of lines performing can be replaced with a single call to a module. Point out the benefit of using code maintained by someone else; use the phrase "make or buy". Slap all that into a PowerPoint presentation and you're done :-) -- Peter Scott http://www.perldebugged.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
