Perl, ksh, DB2 + unix
25 February 2003, 01:09 AM
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Anyone know the principles/basics of these technologies, how to use them, what they are based on etc.?
Or any websites that gives you the lowdown etc.
I'm a computer science grad (have been doing CRM for 3 years and changing soon hopefully) and have done some Unix and C + unix scripting etc. Got interview for a job which is SQL, Unix, VBA etc. which I am fine with but some of the 'nice' to have are Perl, ksh, DB2 etc. so would love to go into the interview with better idea of the technologies etc. Uni textbooks are lost somewhere so I can't 'revise' with them unfortunately.
Or any websites that gives you the lowdown etc.
I'm a computer science grad (have been doing CRM for 3 years and changing soon hopefully) and have done some Unix and C + unix scripting etc. Got interview for a job which is SQL, Unix, VBA etc. which I am fine with but some of the 'nice' to have are Perl, ksh, DB2 etc. so would love to go into the interview with better idea of the technologies etc. Uni textbooks are lost somewhere so I can't 'revise' with them unfortunately.
25 February 2003, 01:42 PM
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Csh is similar (loosely) to the C language.
Ksh is Korn Shell, which a hybrid of Bourne Shell (sh).
Your best bet is to search for Unix man pages online - this will give you a run down of them. As Steve said, use Google.com
Perl - this is a mix of a lot things try http://www.perl.org/.
DB2 is IBM propriotory junk dbase, IMHO. Has been sneaked into a lot of companies through the back door as it 'sits' under some versions of WebSphere... so you had to install it to use WebSphere, so then you had to find out what is was and how to look after it when it went wrong, then some companies thought they could use it for other stuff.. blah blah blah.. rant..etc.....
Personally, I don't like it - can you tell?
Sorry, can't go into specifics now, too much on at work - but if you have more specific questions, I'll try and pop back and answer them later...
Alex
Ksh is Korn Shell, which a hybrid of Bourne Shell (sh).
Your best bet is to search for Unix man pages online - this will give you a run down of them. As Steve said, use Google.com
Perl - this is a mix of a lot things try http://www.perl.org/.
DB2 is IBM propriotory junk dbase, IMHO. Has been sneaked into a lot of companies through the back door as it 'sits' under some versions of WebSphere... so you had to install it to use WebSphere, so then you had to find out what is was and how to look after it when it went wrong, then some companies thought they could use it for other stuff.. blah blah blah.. rant..etc.....
Personally, I don't like it - can you tell?
Sorry, can't go into specifics now, too much on at work - but if you have more specific questions, I'll try and pop back and answer them later...
Alex
25 February 2003, 01:58 PM
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Don't know how to use DB2 then Alex?
I will add tho' that I've not used DB2 in a non mainframe environment, but on a MF, it's the dB solution of choice - if you're working on a lot of data (IMO)
[Edited by Fosters - 2/25/2003 2:00:17 PM]
I will add tho' that I've not used DB2 in a non mainframe environment, but on a MF, it's the dB solution of choice - if you're working on a lot of data (IMO
)[Edited by Fosters - 2/25/2003 2:00:17 PM]
25 February 2003, 02:33 PM
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I don't like DB2 either 
Is csh based on C syntax? I didn't know they actually wanted to make it look like C. It doesn't remind me of C very much Perl happens to be my primary language, so ...
Perl is written in C and shares a lot with it, also has roots in sed, awk and shell. Perl stands for "Practical Extraction and Report Language" and it excels at text processing, which it was originally designed for. It's grown a lot since then though and offers all the functionality of any other mainstream language. Its OO isn't pure OO as in Java or Ruby say, but is still OO nonetheless and offers all the usual functionaility such as inheritence, polymorphism, encapsulation (unforced), plus a few Perl-only bits like AUTOLOADed methods. It's an interpreted language as opposed to C which is compiled, although Perl 6 may address this issue with it's new Parrot interpreter in future. Some people like to compare Perl to PHP, but that's usually because they don't know what Perl is. They couldn't be further from eachother, except they're both used a lot for web development so that's where the generalisation occurs.
Perl is good at rapid prototype development, in fact it's so good that a lot of people usually stick with their Perl prototypes! You really can knock programs up at a frighteningly rapid pace. Downsides depend on your application really, people complain scripts are slow when run under Apaches mod_cgi say, but mod_perl fixes that completely. Perl isn't the best choice if you want to write and sell a commercial application, you can't "hide" the source like you can with a compiled program but then you're not using the "right tool for the right job" anyway. Perl is supported by CPAN (www.cpan.org) where you can get thousands of pre-written modules to use in your own code for free, these are usually well written and well tested, one of the mantras is "don't reinvent the wheel". There is a massive userbase with many, many support sites and mailing lists online. It's not uncommon for a query to be answered by the guy that wrote the module/book/core function etc, as long as you've read the manual first Beginners may find it a bit daunting at first, there really are ten ways to do everything and there is rarely one correct way of doing something, depends what you're trying to achieve. It's very compact and you can write one line of Perl that would take 20 or 30 lines in C or Java if you so wished. Remember you or someone else has to maintain that code later though
perl.com has most if not all Perl related info.
Steve.
Is csh based on C syntax? I didn't know they actually wanted to make it look like C. It doesn't remind me of C very much Perl happens to be my primary language, so ...Perl is written in C and shares a lot with it, also has roots in sed, awk and shell. Perl stands for "Practical Extraction and Report Language" and it excels at text processing, which it was originally designed for. It's grown a lot since then though and offers all the functionality of any other mainstream language. Its OO isn't pure OO as in Java or Ruby say, but is still OO nonetheless and offers all the usual functionaility such as inheritence, polymorphism, encapsulation (unforced), plus a few Perl-only bits like AUTOLOADed methods. It's an interpreted language as opposed to C which is compiled, although Perl 6 may address this issue with it's new Parrot interpreter in future. Some people like to compare Perl to PHP, but that's usually because they don't know what Perl is. They couldn't be further from eachother, except they're both used a lot for web development so that's where the generalisation occurs.
Perl is good at rapid prototype development, in fact it's so good that a lot of people usually stick with their Perl prototypes! You really can knock programs up at a frighteningly rapid pace. Downsides depend on your application really, people complain scripts are slow when run under Apaches mod_cgi say, but mod_perl fixes that completely. Perl isn't the best choice if you want to write and sell a commercial application, you can't "hide" the source like you can with a compiled program but then you're not using the "right tool for the right job" anyway. Perl is supported by CPAN (www.cpan.org) where you can get thousands of pre-written modules to use in your own code for free, these are usually well written and well tested, one of the mantras is "don't reinvent the wheel". There is a massive userbase with many, many support sites and mailing lists online. It's not uncommon for a query to be answered by the guy that wrote the module/book/core function etc, as long as you've read the manual first
Beginners may find it a bit daunting at first, there really are ten ways to do everything and there is rarely one correct way of doing something, depends what you're trying to achieve. It's very compact and you can write one line of Perl that would take 20 or 30 lines in C or Java if you so wished. Remember you or someone else has to maintain that code later though perl.com has most if not all Perl related info.
Steve.
25 February 2003, 02:42 PM
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Foster - in a word, no I don't and don't want to.. I could never see the value of install DB2 when we had WebSphere, and still don't - huge overhead for just using WebSphere.
I dare say it rules the MF world, but it seems to be a bag-o-sh**e on Solaris, along with other IBM products that were ported from AIX.... IMHO and a few others who use them that I know..
Don't get me started on AIX!
Steve - Yeah, the Csh shell does have some roots from C, many many years ago... I'm sure its documented in one of the O'Reilly books.
.. oh well, I've got to get back to my DNS stuff....
I dare say it rules the MF world, but it seems to be a bag-o-sh**e on Solaris, along with other IBM products that were ported from AIX.... IMHO and a few others who use them that I know..
Don't get me started on AIX!
Steve - Yeah, the Csh shell does have some roots from C, many many years ago... I'm sure its documented in one of the O'Reilly books.
.. oh well, I've got to get back to my DNS stuff....
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25 February 2003, 02:45 PM
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Perl stands for "Practical Extraction and Report Language"
Perl is a fantastic tool that, once you get the basics of the language, you will find using for little things here and there. The speed of development and freedom of the language are great for getting things done. The mantra "there is more than one way to do it" is a good one to remember; don't get hung up on looking for the "right" way.
LIMP, my MP3 player, is written in PERL. Scary but true. I simply cannot recommend learning a bit of perl highly enough - it's that useful. The power is in the patterns, amongst other things...
KSH is a great shell; use the man pages. Very easy to pick up and write very useful scripts with. Part of the IBDE processing for a large high-street bank was written by me in KSH. It still works.
DB2 - database. Beyond that, no idea.
PERL is fantastic, absolutely fantastic...
25 February 2003, 02:48 PM
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Great feedback chaps! keep it coming.
I'm quite familiar with C and a bit of Unix and am a CS degree grad so am I likely to have any problems quickly picking it up?
Can I download the interpreter? Unix emulators etc. as I've only an XP PC at home.
I'm quite familiar with C and a bit of Unix and am a CS degree grad so am I likely to have any problems quickly picking it up?
Can I download the interpreter? Unix emulators etc. as I've only an XP PC at home.
25 February 2003, 03:08 PM
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You can get ActiveState Perl from activestate.com, works pretty well. Remember there are fundamental differences which have been emulated on Win32 such as forking. To get the full power you really need to be running it under a UNIX environment though, although Cygwin might be a good alternative.
Steve.
Steve.
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