From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Nov 21 06:38:51 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id GAA26240 for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 21 Nov 1996 06:38:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from sdev.usn.blaze.net.au (sdev.usn.blaze.net.au [203.17.53.19]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id GAA26230 for ; Thu, 21 Nov 1996 06:38:37 -0800 (PST) Received: (from davidn@localhost) by sdev.usn.blaze.net.au (8.8.2/8.6.9) id BAA17772; Fri, 22 Nov 1996 01:36:17 +1100 (EST) Message-ID: 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! References: <199611210344.OAA10837@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> <57sp638rpb.fsf@tees.elsevier.co.uk> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.50 Mime-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <57sp638rpb.fsf@tees.elsevier.co.uk>; from Paul Richards on Nov 21, 1996 14:10:08 +0000 Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk 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