From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Aug 16 06:57:31 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 72118106566B; Mon, 16 Aug 2010 06:57:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from sean@gothic.net.au) Received: from visi.gothic.net.au (visi.gothic.net.au [115.64.131.102]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 227BF8FC16; Mon, 16 Aug 2010 06:57:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: from visi.gothic.net.au (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by visi.gothic.net.au (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5696741EDB; Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:41:18 +1000 (EST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at gothic.net.au Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by visi.gothic.net.au (visi.gothic.net.au [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10026) with SMTP id FvY6bnfauueZ; Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:41:12 +1000 (EST) Received: from dhcp195.gothic.net.au (dhcp195.gothic.net.au [10.168.1.195]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) (Authenticated sender: sean) by visi.gothic.net.au (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C5F3F41ED3; Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:41:11 +1000 (EST) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1081) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii From: Sean In-Reply-To: Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:41:11 +1000 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: References: <4C6505A4.9060203@FreeBSD.org> <4C650B75.3020800@FreeBSD.org> <4C651192.9020403@FreeBSD.org> <4C673898.2080609@FreeBSD.org> To: Doug Barton X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1081) Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, Ivan Voras Subject: Re: Interpreted language(s) in the base X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 06:57:31 -0000 On 16/08/2010, at 4:15 PM, Doug Barton wrote: > On Sun, 15 Aug 2010, Ivan Voras wrote: >=20 >> This is my long-term point - it really would be beneficial to have an >> alternative, richer language in base which would fall between the >> categories of "a good system language but far too complex for simple >> string-parsing stuff" which is C and "a good glue language for system >> utilities but lacking more evolved concepts" which is shell. >=20 > I sort of agree with you here, but I don't. :) ONE of the reasons = that perl was axed from the base was that it was very very hard to keep = the bmake glue up to date. However, a bigger reason was that it was = impossible to marry our concept of a "stable" branch with the = ever-evolving world that was perl. We often had a situation where a = long-lived stable branch would have a VERY stale version of perl in it, = to the point that the only rational course of action was to disable the = perl build and install a usable version from ports. We do not want to go = back down that road. (And I'm not speculating here, I lived through it.) >=20 And lest anyone think "that's just perl", look at the history of TCL in = the base system as well.=20=