[ale] need freelance perl developer for a small project

[Mike Harrison]

> I would write this myself in PHP, but the client is hosting this site
> and is resistant to installing php on the server.  If no one can do it,
> I'm sure I could hack it together myself in perl, but that is not really

-- I see lots of request like this out there, especially from Guru.com. 
and I'm slammed or I'd throw my name in the hat. 

This issue in a lot of web apps is what is the best language for the job, 
and what is on the server and what will the client run. I -LOVE- PERL, 
It was my first love of *nix programming languages, I still use it a lot.
both for web as well as CLI and Terminal Screen type of programs. I've 
even done joint Windows/*nix things using wxWidgets. Fun. 

But I also use PHP every day for doing -exactly- the type of things you 
requested. It's the natural language for simple web database interactions, 
as well as stuffing data into Flash apps, I do a lot of this via 
FlashVars= as well as XML. And it does complex web/database interactions 
and large projects as well. 

Are there security issues inherent in PHP? 
just as much as anything else.. 

----I guess my real point is, the client doesn't want to install a tool 
that is -probably-* the easiest and most efficient way of doing what you 
describe. It makes me think that it would be a difficult client to 
satisfy and work with.

That being said: If you are already working with them, and know PHP, I'd 
take a real hard look at doing it in Perl. Depending on how you write PHP, 
your Perl code may not be very different. I tend to cut and paste a lot of 
code between the two, changing sub/function  elseif/elsif etc.. etc..
and sometimes get very confused as to which language I am writing in 
this minute.. Especially when I am using PHP for the web interface, 
and some PERL for parsing raw data into *SQL (I like Perl's Regex's).

*-everyone has a different opinion, I am sure..Don't bother flaming me
with why O'Caml, REXX, or Ruby is better. I'll concede if you know it well
and can make it dance, you are correct.

So, take a try at doing it in Perl. The hardest part will be connecting to 
Oracle.. (or whatever is in the middle).. After that it's all parsing 
inputs, sql queries and printing HTML. 	Once you figure out a few 
simple test functions (subs), the rest is cut/paste/edit, cut/paste/edit...