Approaches to Web Development for Bioinformatics

Perl Compared with Other Languages

Some of the disadvantages of Perl are

1. It can be harder to read than write.  This has much to do with Perl culture and literature, which has focused on the language's use as a utility for text processing, system administration, and creation of interactive web pages.  In many of these activities the teams are small and the only person who will read the code will be the author.  However, I find the use of symbols like $ (scalar variable), @ (array), % (hash table) , & (function), and \ (reference) confusing in themselves.
2. The language is less structured and toolable than many compiled languages.  In compiled languages, such as C++ and Java, compilers and integrated development environments can introspect code and quickly locate syntax errors and suggest completion possibilities while the developer is typing.
3. Facilities for internationalization, user interface development, and other features needed for larger scale software development, and product development have lagged Java and C++.  However, these very features have made those languages and the platforms that extend them large and complex, which has become a barrier in itself.  It raises the issue of how a professional from a field other than software engineering should learn a programming language without having to deal with all of the other complexities of programming for product development.
4. Because of the lack of a compiled binary version of Perl code it is more difficult to protect intellect property with Perl.

Using Perl it is possible to create web pages using the many bioinformatics available on the web. A good starting point for this is the BioPerl project¹⁵.

There are a number of other Perl examples elsewhere in this article, including Web Programming with Perl and Working with Data from Public Databases. 

See the page Perl Resources on this web site for a list of popular and user suggested perl resources.

Please send ideas and opinions by email at alexamies@gmail.com.