Additional Resources
Any language that attracts a following tends to benefit from the efforts of its user community, because people who use the language produce code that they make available to others. Perl in particular is served by an extensive support network designed to provide external modules that are not distributed with Perl itself. This is called the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN), a mechanism for organizing and distributing Perl code and documentation. CPAN contains modules that allow database access, web programming, and XML processing, to name a few of direct relevance to this cookbook. External support exists for the other languages as well, though none of them currently enjoys the same level of organization as CPAN. PHP has the PEAR archive, and Python has a module archive called the Vaults of Parnassus. For Java, a good starting point is Sun’s Java site. Sites that you can visit to find more information are shown in the following table.
|
API language |
Where to find external support |
|---|---|
|
Perl | |
|
PHP | |
|
Python | |
|
Java |