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The problem of old languages like perl and Ada is not lack of libraries, but lack of good developers that know how to write idiomatic code. Performing caching a

The problem of old languages like perl and Ada is not lack of libraries, but lack of good developers that know how to write idiomatic code. Performing caching at the application level is so trivial in Perl that I do not see how a caching at ORM level could give any benefit.

zimpenfish 9y ago
> I do not see how a caching at ORM level could give any benefit. I don't know anything about the Python libraries as such but if they implement pluggable modules like memcache, redis, SysV SHM, etc., for the caching, then you can chop and change as required without having to make any application level changes[1]. Which is also handy for testing because you can supply your own mock cache module to do ... whatever. [1] A good example would be going from "direct DB access" to "global memcache" to "local memcache backed by global memcache" - all without application changes.
- mfontani 9y ago
  > A good example would be going from "direct DB access" to "global memcache" to "local memcache backed by global memcache" - all without application changes. I strongly disagree: I'd rather debug something wrong with the lone application level change which added the cache support at the application level, rather than have to enter the long and deep rabbit hole of the path the code takes at the point I ask for a resultset and I get something from the DB-backed ORM, or from a global memcache, or blah. But then again, I happily develop on mostly-Perl codebase(s) ;)
mfontani 9y ago
> lack of good developers that know how to write idiomatic code … and they're getting fewer and fewer by the year, at least for Perl :|
Rjevski 9y ago
Well in my particular case it's a read-only app (there are no writes at all from the app itself so no need to worry about cache invalidation) so a caching ORM that can be a drop-in replacement would've been a huge win for less than one hour of dev time, and I could've done it in Python without any issues. With this obsolete language the only way is to change pretty much all the app to do app-layer caching and that would've cost 20x times that, so we're not going to do it.
TurboHaskal 9y ago
And lack of employers that want to pay for such developers. Hence everything is being rewritten to Java(Script) and PHP.
- Rjevski 9y ago
  Well I don't blame employers who don't want to invest in a dead language. In Python land I am still happily getting offers with good salaries.

zimpenfish 9y ago

> I do not see how a caching at ORM level could give any benefit. I don't know anything about the Python libraries as such but if they implement pluggable modules like memcache, redis, SysV SHM, etc., for the caching, then you can chop and change as required without having to make any application level changes[1]. Which is also handy for testing because you can supply your own mock cache module to do ... whatever. [1] A good example would be going from "direct DB access" to "global memcache" to "local memcache backed by global memcache" - all without application changes.

mfontani 9y ago
> A good example would be going from "direct DB access" to "global memcache" to "local memcache backed by global memcache" - all without application changes. I strongly disagree: I'd rather debug something wrong with the lone application level change which added the cache support at the application level, rather than have to enter the long and deep rabbit hole of the path the code takes at the point I ask for a resultset and I get something from the DB-backed ORM, or from a global memcache, or blah. But then again, I happily develop on mostly-Perl codebase(s) ;)

mfontani 9y ago

> lack of good developers that know how to write idiomatic code … and they're getting fewer and fewer by the year, at least for Perl :|

Rjevski 9y ago

Well in my particular case it's a read-only app (there are no writes at all from the app itself so no need to worry about cache invalidation) so a caching ORM that can be a drop-in replacement would've been a huge win for less than one hour of dev time, and I could've done it in Python without any issues. With this obsolete language the only way is to change pretty much all the app to do app-layer caching and that would've cost 20x times that, so we're not going to do it.

TurboHaskal 9y ago

And lack of employers that want to pay for such developers. Hence everything is being rewritten to Java(Script) and PHP.

Rjevski 9y ago
Well I don't blame employers who don't want to invest in a dead language. In Python land I am still happily getting offers with good salaries.