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Date:      Fri, 22 Nov 1996 01:36:14 +1100
From:      davidn@sdev.usn.blaze.net.au (David Nugent)
To:        p.richards@elsevier.co.uk (Paul Richards)
Cc:        msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith), terry@lambert.org, roberto@keltia.freenix.fr, hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
Message-ID:  <Mutt.19961122013614.davidn@sdev>
In-Reply-To: <57sp638rpb.fsf@tees.elsevier.co.uk>; from Paul Richards on Nov 21, 1996 14:10:08 %2B0000
References:  <Mutt.19961120162842.davidn@sdev> <199611210344.OAA10837@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> <Mutt.19961121150743.davidn@sdev> <57sp638rpb.fsf@tees.elsevier.co.uk>

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Paul Richards writes:
> > The point is not really whether perl4 disappears or not (it *must* do
> > so eventually - it is, as I said, old and unsupported) but whether
> > perl5 is needed in the base distribution.
> 
> Well, I wasn't that keen on moving perl into the distribution at the
> time. The few scripts we currently have could have been written in C
> without much effort but we should either decide to rip perl out
> completely or accept Perl5 as an integral part of the system and make
> more use of it.

Yep. That's a pretty good summary of where I'm coming from.

And I believe - purely from observation - that the concern about
"bloat" is the real reason why this has not happened to date.
My stated preference as to whether or not perl5 was included
was more a side-comment than anything else. Since this point
seems be causing most of the "noise" in this discussion, I'll
refrain from touching that topic again. :)

Perl4 is dead, and has been for quite some time. As a result,
most third-party scripts require 5.00x anyway, and any developer
using Perl is using perl5.xxx these days, so its usefulness
as a system component is very, very limited, whether it is
provided as part of the base operating system, an additional
module or as a port.

Regards,

David Nugent, Unique Computing Pty Ltd - Melbourne, Australia
Voice +61-3-9791-9547 Data/BBS +61-3-9792-3507 3:632/348@fidonet
davidn@blaze.net.au http://www.blaze.net.au/~davidn



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