From: bartelt@enteract.com (Jay Bartelt) 09/02/98 14:37 Subject: Perl DBI vs. LiveWire We are beginning additional development on a Enterprise Server driven website in which a majority of the code is LiveWire javascript. Is it worth attempting a performance comparison between the current LiveWire setup and perl using DBI to access a rather huge Oracle database? I read in a FAQ that LiveWire javascript runs 60 times faster on complex queries than Perl. Is the fact that this is on a Netscape Enterprise FAQ show that they are complete liars or are they whistling the right tune here? I would prefer to use Perl as I am tired of dealing with these moronic .web files compiled by LiveWire. Has anybody out there done a comparison or have an opinion? Thanks! ************** From: yong 09/02/98 15:18 Subject: Re: Perl DBI vs. LiveWire It seems there're not many people using LiveWire any more. I don't know if it's really good in performance but I don't think you can run it on any server other than Netscape. Perl is good at least in the sense that it's more portable. Have you posted a message to a Netscape newsgroup such as netscape.dev.livewire.programming? Yong Huang ************ From: Elaine -HappyFunBall- Ashton 09/02/98 16:48 Subject: Re: Perl DBI vs. LiveWire it really depends on what kind of machine its on, etc. but, i will say flatly that i LOATHE livewire. its cool when it works but sucks majorly when it doesn't. we have worked with so many customers who have mangled livewire beyond belief and caused more problems than its worth. you should probably write up 2 models, one with perl dbi and one with livewire. if you use livewire use the pools as opposed to opening/closing the connection to the db every time. also, livewire is buggy. i forget what patch level they are in now but if you have customer support, request the latest and greatest version. dbi with oracle works great. e. *********** From: "Jim Babbington" Thu 08:15 Subject: Re: Perl DBI vs. LiveWire IMHO, Yup livewire is faster (I'm using informix) and queries are easier - but.... - LiveWire is not portable. - If you excell at coding JS, your good at JS and nothing else. Perl offers much broader horizons. - NSES 3.0 will only allow you 120 applications (May seam like a lot, but you could run out real quick). - I've seen pictures of the Perl porters, and they seam very healthy, and will probably be around for a long time. Later, Jim ********** From: dturley@pobox.com Thu 14:17 Subject: Re: Perl DBI vs. LiveWire In article <35ed48d8.1881485@news.enteract.com>, >Has anybody out there done a > comparison or have an opinion? Thanks! Having done LiveWire development for almost 2 years, my vote would be for Perl. My experience with ES on Solaris, using both sybase and M$-SQL server dbs shows me that LW is broken and full of bugs. Netscape is unresponsive to bug reports or help requests. If you read Netscape's LW newgroup you'll find the same problems being reported over and over with no fixes from NS. When I pressed a tech support person for info on how a problem is handled, he told me that they'd post it to an internal BBS, and if someone looked at it and decided to try and find a fix, they'd do it. Otherwise nothing would really happen. I recently had a private converstion with a Netscape employee who said that Netscape wasn't going to even support LW anymore, turning it's attention to Application server instead. If you have a choice, don't choose LW. ************* From: Elaine -HappyFunBall- Ashton Thu 16:50 Subject: Re: Perl DBI vs. LiveWire > I recently had a private converstion with a Netscape employee who said that > Netscape wasn't going to even support LW anymore, turning it's attention to > Application server instead. this is a handy tidbit. there are few people who use livewire well here and its like pulling teeth when it breaks. the super-duper-ultra-nifty support we are supposed to be paying for has been limited in my view as well. hadn't heard about dumping it though. time to migrate those customers to something real and stable. e. ************