On Dec 29, 2008, at 00:45, nicerobot wrote:
I fully understand the design decision. My point is that the
decision is
flawed because it's too inflexible. Macports should be more
versatile with
respect to perl because perl modules aren't generally treated the
same as
binary libraries (i.e. the FAQ link you referenced isn't completely
applicable to perl modules). It's completely acceptable and
understandable
for macports to provide it's own version(s) of perl and even to
require a
set of modules. There's just absolutely no reason whatsoever that
macport's
version of perl can't, for those that decide to do so, share/
combine the
@INC with the OS's perl's @INC, especially when the two builds of
perl are
identical versions.
That's just it -- the version of Perl included with Mac OS X and the
version of perl5.8 in MacPorts happen to be identical at this moment
in time -- they're both 5.8.8. But Perl 5.8.9 was released two weeks
ago, and the perl5.8 port will likely be updated to that version
soon. Then they are different versions. Based on past experience, I
would guess Apple will never update the version of Perl provided in
Panther (because they're not updating anything for Panther anymore),
and they'll probably only update the versions in Tiger and Leopard if
the new version fixes a security issue or some other show-stopper,
and even then they may not do so for months. This is the whole reason
we want MacPorts to use software provided by MacPorts, and not
software provided by Apple in Mac OS X -- so that we're not stuck to
whatever release schedule Apple decides to use.
We also routinely have trouble when users have already installed
software in /usr/local and then start using MacPorts -- lots of
software in MacPorts looks in /usr/local first and if it finds what
it's looking for, uses that version of the software instead of the
copy MacPorts installed, and then things often don't work right
because the version in /usr/local is older than what we need.
The point, as others have made, is that things work best when you let
MacPorts manage all your software for you.
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