From: jmvw AT design DOT nl (Michiel) Subject: Re: Anyone using Perl for something besides web stuff? 17 Dec 1996 14:08:36 -0800 Sender: daemon AT cygnus DOT com Approved: cygnus DOT gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Distribution: cygnus Message-ID: <3.0.32.19961217220625.0069bbf8.cygnus.gnu-win32@pop.design.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: jmvw AT pop DOT design DOT nl X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Original-To: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Original-Sender: owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Hi, Richard is right - scripting isn't done as much under Windows. There are script-like interpreters available for both DOS/Console mode and GUI Windows (these being pretty separate things until recently) but they're kind of obscure. For writing utilities, people just made executables, using C or Pascal or whatever compiled language. Batch files are seriously limited and I don't think I ever saw them distributed alone. An advantage is that you'll have less dependencies. I'm a PC programmer turned Unix admin (and PC and Mac), so I kind of went the other way.. You know what I'd really like? Windows '95 rewritten to be Unix based (is anyone porting the Hurd yet? :) . Michiel At 09:09 17-12-96 GMT0, Richard Donkin wrote: >In-Reply-To: <199612151708 DOT MAA22866 AT lucius DOT ultra DOT net> >> When I first started working on PC's I asked everyone I could what >> scripting language was popular so I could learn how to use it. I >> figured I should learn to use the tools popular in this environment >> rather than trying to transplant my UNIX tools (you know, when in Rome >> do as the Romans do). A few folks mentioned that Visual Basic was >> popular. But in general, the programmers who had a long history with >> PC's were perplexed by my questions about scripting languages and what >> people used. I concluded (perhaps wrongly) that writing scripts was >> not something often done in this environment. It appears that a >> powerful, universal scripting language with a wealth of pre-existing >> scripts did not exist in the PC enviroment, so I continue to use perl >> as my scripting language of choice. Which to be honest suits me just >> fine. But given that most users of Win32 Perl seem to think its for >> Web programming only and the lack of cohessive answers from other >> developers about scripting languages on the PC leaves me with the >> lingering question that I have somehow missed how people are providing >> utilities in this enviroment. >> > >Scripting is definitely a big omission in the PC environment - I also have a >Unix background but have been using PCs more recently. For some reason >Microsoft bundles a scripting language with its Office products (VB for >Applications) but not with its operating systems... I am not counting batch >language because it is appalling. > >> John (a somewhat perplexed foreigner in the land of PC's who is >> trying to learn the local customs, but still prefers to speak in his >> native tounge :-) >> >> P.S.: (This is not a perl question, but its related to the topic) I've >> searched high and low for documentation on the language implemented by the >> cmd interpreter. Either because I have at times wanted to write a .bat >> script or because I wanted to understand how an existing script >> worked, or because I'm still confused with the distinctions between >> .bat, .cmd (and .com?) files. I've looked through all the Microsoft >> documentation I have access to (including MSDN) and in bookstores for >> 3rd party documentation books, but I've come up empty handed. Given >> this is the "official" scripting language how can documentation for it >> be so hard to find? Or am I totally lame and just missed it? Can >> anyone provide a pointer? (sorry, I know this question does not >> properly belong on the perl-win32 list) > >If you have access to an old DOS 6.x system, try the HELP command from DOS - >this puts you into a character-based online help window that does cover the >batch file language, although not incredibly well. There are definitely >some older books that cover this - books for DOS 4 onwards should still be >relevant as the many misfeatures have yet to be fixed! > >I have just written some DOS batch file language for a tool called sh2bat >that converts shell scripts by wrapping them in a DOS batch file so they can >be executed from the DOS command.com/cmd.exe, and it is not a pretty sight. > >Richard >-- >richardd AT cix DOT compulink DOT co DOT uk http://www.inside-edge.co.uk/ >Inside Edge Consultancy Client/Server and Internet Applications >PGP key from: pgp-public-keys AT keys DOT pgp DOT net -or- http://www.four11.com/ - For help on using this list, send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".