On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 10:58:21AM +0200, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> John M. Dlugosz wrote:
>> The front-end should figure out which binary is proper for your
>> platform.
>
> I don't like that idea in the slightest. (1) It is not Perl's job to
> know if you have a C compiler, C libraries and tool chain. (2) If my
> computer can handle Perl, C and Parrot, I want the choice of what to
> install. (3) That includes the possibility of installing more than one
> module. It is perfectly legitimate to install three implementations of
> SHA (one in C, one in Parrot and one in pure Perl). This last one means
> that there has to be a way to tell Perl which of the Digest::SHA modules
> I want to use for this particular program.
>
> Suppose I want to install three versions of SHA. One in C, one in Perl,
> one in Parrot. I need a way to specify in the "use" statement which one
> I want.
For the Parrot case at least, I suspect one would/could do:
use SHA:from<Parrot>;
(See the :from adverb in S11.)
Indeed, for someone who is running an implementation of Perl 6
on Parrot (and where a Parrot-specific implementation of SHA is
available), I would expect a plain "usa SHA;" to load SHA.pm
which then in turn does the :from<Parrot> version of use. Or
any other number of implementation-specific tricks that can hide the
details for a generic "use SHA" but still make it possible for
more specific requirements to be made.
Pm
