Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 16:18:24 +1300 (NZDT) From: Andrew McNaughton <andrew@scoop.co.nz> To: Matthias Andree <matthias.andree@gmx.de> Cc: tobez@freebsd.org Subject: Re: [HEADS UP] perl symlinks in /usr/bin will be gone Message-ID: <20050130160610.X9021@a2.scoop.co.nz> In-Reply-To: <m3fz0jtzbc.fsf@merlin.emma.line.org> References: <20050129202425.GA56998@heechee.tobez.org> <m3fz0jtzbc.fsf@merlin.emma.line.org>
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On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Matthias Andree wrote: > Oliver Lehmann <lehmann@ans-netz.de> writes: > >> Anton Berezin wrote: >> >>> In practical terms this will mean a one-time sweep of your scripts in >>> order to convert them, in a typical case, from #! /usr/bin/perl to >>> #! /usr/local/bin/perl. >> >> Wouldn't that break most of the 3rd party scripts out in the world? > > Hardcoded paths in scripts are a mess. What if I installed Perl into > /opt/mumble on some other machine? /usr/freeware? /what/ever? Changed > $PREFIX and/or $LOCALBASE? > > I'd say let the ports patch the right location at install time and if > they break after upgrading both perl and the port, they deserve no better. Ports covers only a *very* small proportion of the perl scripts in use out there. There are for instance no end of CGI scripts and system automation scripts out there that are produced for in house use. Imagine what will be a fairly typical case: Some website owner who hired a programmer in the past to set stuff up suddenly finds their site is broken. They'll probably call their hosting provider first. The hosting provider might require all their affected customers to find someone who understands enough to fix this - which would add up to millions of dollars of expenditure worldwide if everyone took that approach. More likely, most hosting providers would put back in the symlinks that it is proposed to remove. They'll then have a 'non-standard' modification to maintain on their own systems, and this will probably be standard practice, not modifying all the scripts people want to put in. Seems like a lot of people wasting effort to me. Andrew McNaughton -- The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example." - George Bush, 26 June 2003 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Andrew McNaughton http://www.scoop.co.nz/ andrew@scoop.co.nz Mobile: +61 422 753 792
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