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Inquiry

TO:	 Troy Pearse
FROM:	 Jason Evans (UI CS481 team B)
SUBJECT: HP Perl support and project concerns
DATE:	 September 20, 1996

Mr. Pearse,

In our CS481 team meeting with you on September 12, we discussed possible
languages the conditional compilation logic analyzer could be written in.  It
was decided that Perl is a viable option, provided that our code is
compatible with the version of Perl available at HP.

We have tested our existing code on the three versions of the Perl
interpreter that we have at UI: v4.036, v5.001, and v5.002.  Our code runs
correctly with no modifications on versions 5.001 and 5.002.  We can also, if
necessary make it compatible with version 4.036 without losing functionality
or features.  Perl 5.x simply makes variable scope and type checking more
versatile and robust than in Perl 4.x.

We recommend the use of Perl for this project.  We understand that your group
at HP is very familiar with shell scripts.  Perl is a scripting language and
is in many ways similar to shell scripts.  Understanding the code will not
require a major effort.  Perl provides impressive power in data handling,
list operations, formatted file I/O, extended regular expression matching,
and code structure.  These strengths, we believe, lend themselves very
favorably to the design and implementation of the product you require.

Another issue of the project is the format of the graphical output.  Given
that there will be graphical output, we believe that PostScript is the
logical, most usable format.  PostScript tools and printer drivers are widely
accessible.  PostScript also provides versatility for displaying information.
Images can be readily scaled to virtually any page size, can be tiled across
multiple pages for large images, and is a standard format which is very
portable.

We would like your approval to use both Perl and PostScript.  The resulting
product will be robust, very functional, and reasonably portable within Unix
environments.

Please consider these points and let us know of your decision.

Sincerely,

Jason Evans
Team Leader
UI CS481 Team B
evans911@cs.uidaho.edu