Item 85. Inline code for other languages

Sometimes you need to access software written in a language other than Perl. In the past, this meant that you had to re-write the library in Perl or use Perl’s XS mechanism (Item 86) to tie into the library. Re-writing isn’t always a reasonable option, and XS can be tricky. Luckily, the Inline family of modules makes it simple to interface with other languages.

For instance, there is a considerable number of statistical packages available in Java. With Inline::Java you can do things like combining the convenient scriptability and networking ability of Perl with the power of a Java statistical analysis package like Classifier4J.