On 5/22/13 6:50 AM, "Ralph Castain" <r...@open-mpi.org> wrote:
> >On May 22, 2013, at 6:37 AM, "Jeff Squyres (jsquyres)" ><jsquy...@cisco.com> wrote: > >> On May 22, 2013, at 9:18 AM, Ralph Castain <r...@open-mpi.org> wrote: >> >>> I have no issues other than wondering why we don't do it in perl given >>>that we already do all non-shell actions in perl - is it necessary to >>>intro another language? >> >> Because Craig is writing it and he (strongly) prefers Python. That's >>really the main (only?) reason. > >Hmmm...the issue is that perl usually is included in the distro, but >python often is not - you have to add that module. IIRC, that was the >rationale for allowing perl. Others (e.g., me) had played with using >python before, but switched to perl (a) for the prior rationale, and (b) >to avoid proliferating language requirements. > >I happen to like python myself, but believe there is some value in >avoiding adding yet another language to our list of requirements. I (strongly) agree with Ralph. We made a decision (way back in the 1.0 timeframe) that we would use perl for a scripting language when absolutely necessary. And even at that, I believe we only require Perl for developer builds or distribution builds where an assembly file doesn't already exist for that compiler. I have no problem with the change to generated bindings from a single configuration file/set of files, a bit of a problem with that happening at at configure / build time on a release distribution (we don't require anything other than /bin/sh at configure / build time right now), and a strong problem with using Python instead of the Perl that we've previously agreed we'd use when all other options are unavoidable. Brian -- Brian W. Barrett Scalable System Software Group Sandia National Laboratories
