Re: Circumstance leading up to removal of perl from base?
On Sat, 21 Jun 2008, Kris Kennaway wrote: Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote: Hello all, I know it was a long time ago, but I was talking with a co-worker about why perl was removed from the base in v5 -- I seem to recall a discussion on some mailing list about either the number of arguments or the format of the arguments and/or output of a base perl function having changed between 5.005 and 5.6.1. Thing is, that's a very vague thing to try to google for, and I can't seem to find it. Are there any old-timers who remember the system call in question? I dont think it was that. AFAICR the issue was mostly that it was a *lot* of work to mangle the perl build into bmake format so it would build with make world, and it was also difficult to avoid conflicts with other versions of perl that needed to be installed for port builds. It was just too difficult to maintain in the base system, especially when nothing used it. Yeah, most of my recent re-reading is showing that...but there's something so distinct in my mind that I'm recalling, some function that changed its meaning, return values, and/or number of arguements around that time. I realize that may not be the ONLY reason, and I'm seeing a lot of the predominant otherstill, this is going to bug me, now. I could of course just be insane. Personally, I miss the adduser written in perl -- there's a feature that was in that version that's not in the current (integration with /var/yp and the ability to automagically run make in that dir). -Dan -- When I'm lost, and confused, and trying to make a U-turn, nothing annoys me more than someone telling me to watch out for the tombstone! How often does that happen, Fab? -David Feld Tom Fabry, sometime in High School. Dan Mahoney Techie, Sysadmin, WebGeek Gushi on efnet/undernet IRC ICQ: 13735144 AIM: LarpGM Site: http://www.gushi.org --- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Circumstance leading up to removal of perl from base?
I know it was a long time ago, but I was talking with a co-worker about why perl was removed from the base in v5 -- I seem to recall a discussion on some mailing list about either the number of arguments or the format of the arguments and/or output of a base perl function having changed between 5.005 and 5.6.1. because it's not needed for programs in base system, but you have ports and always can install it. the rule is keep base system simple and small. it's BSD anyway :) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Circumstance leading up to removal of perl from base?
On Sat, 21 Jun 2008, Wojciech Puchar wrote: Yes I know how to use the OS, I'm more sking for historical rivia reasons. -Dan I know it was a long time ago, but I was talking with a co-worker about why perl was removed from the base in v5 -- I seem to recall a discussion on some mailing list about either the number of arguments or the format of the arguments and/or output of a base perl function having changed between 5.005 and 5.6.1. because it's not needed for programs in base system, but you have ports and always can install it. the rule is keep base system simple and small. it's BSD anyway :) -- One...plus two...plus one...plus one. -Tim Curry, Clue Dan Mahoney Techie, Sysadmin, WebGeek Gushi on efnet/undernet IRC ICQ: 13735144 AIM: LarpGM Site: http://www.gushi.org --- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Circumstance leading up to removal of perl from base?
On Saturday 21 June 2008 01:02, Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote: Hello all, I know it was a long time ago, but I was talking with a co-worker about why perl was removed from the base in v5 -- I seem to recall a discussion on some mailing list about either the number of arguments or the format of the arguments and/or output of a base perl function having changed between 5.005 and 5.6.1. Thing is, that's a very vague thing to try to google for, and I can't seem to find it. Are there any old-timers who remember the system call in question? As I remember it, the debate revolved around the regression testing and porting effort of updating the (then very outdated) system Perl, and the large space requirements, especially as more and more CPAN modules were absorbed into the Perl core: there was some discussion about producing a lightweight version by leaving out core modules not used in the base system - at which the Perl people, not unreasonably in my view, invoked the Principle of Least Astonishment, saying that being available in every installation was rather the point of core modules. The conclusion, which made an awful lot of sense, was that the FreeBSD developers would replace the last few scripts in the base system that required Perl, so that Perl could be removed from the base system. This meant that Perl users could use the port, which tracks the current release of Perl more closely than the (properly) rather conservative update cycle Perl had had as part of the FreeBSD base. At the time, the discussion generated controversy among people not directly involved, although the discussion itself was amicable and rational, from what I remember of it. The release notes for FreeBSD 5.0 seem to be dated Jan 2003, so I would imagine digging through mailing lists for 2002 would shed more light - certainly googling for perl removed freebsd gave me a number of links to use.perl.org (for the Perl community's view), Slashdot and various other places. Jonathan ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Circumstance leading up to removal of perl from base?
On Fri 2008-06-20 19:40:04 UTC-0400, DAve ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: No unused perl install, no issues with software getting confused about which perl to run, no need for... what was that command to use the port perl instead of the base perl? I cannot remember anymore. The command was use.perl. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Circumstance leading up to removal of perl from base?
At 7:02 PM -0400 6/20/08, Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote: Hello all, I know it was a long time ago, but I was talking with a co-worker about why perl was removed from the base in v5 -- I seem to recall a discussion on some mailing list about either the number of arguments or the format of the arguments and/or output of a base perl function having changed between 5.005 and 5.6.1. There were a lot of changes between perl 5.005 and later versions of perl. Those issues were changes to perl itself, so check the history of perl for details. I don't remember the details myself, but I do know that I had to change a few of my own perl scripts to get them to work with whatever changes there were. When it comes to FreeBSD, those incompatible changes meant we were reluctant to upgrade perl in the base system, because we might break the scripts for lots of sysadmins. On the other hand, most sysadmins *wanted* all the newer features in the newer versions of perl, so most people were installing it from ports even though we had the older version in the base system. And when people had two versions of perl installed (one from the base-OS, one from ports), then they often ran into problems with perl scripts which would get the wrong version. There were also programs which would have configure scripts that would pick up one version of perl, make decisions based on that, but then build scripts and those scripts would actually get the *other* version of perl. Remember also this was back when the FreeBSD project was putting a lot of energy into the great FreeBSD 5.x branch -- which for awhile seemed like it would never get truly stable. And we could not make a major change (such as upgrading perl) in any stable branch -- a change like that would break too many things. In that context, it was clear that FreeBSD was a project which had its release schedule, and Perl was a big and important project which had *its* own release schedule. And we were always going to be in trouble if our release schedule did not match perl's schedule. The final straw for perl in the base system was when the project was trying to bring up new hardware platforms (sparc64, or ia64, or maybe something else. I forget which one). In order to do that, you have to be able to *cross-build* the base system on one hardware platform while you're trying to get the new hardware platform to the point that it is self-hosting. And trying to take all the source code for the perl project, and re-organize it so it would correctly cross-build in the proper way for the FreeBSD base system was a lot of extra headaches. There were plenty of other arguments to remove perl from the base system, but cross-platform builds were the issue which actually triggered it's removal. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Senior Systems Programmer or [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Troy, NY; USA ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Circumstance leading up to removal of perl from base?
Hello all, I know it was a long time ago, but I was talking with a co-worker about why perl was removed from the base in v5 -- I seem to recall a discussion on some mailing list about either the number of arguments or the format of the arguments and/or output of a base perl function having changed between 5.005 and 5.6.1. Thing is, that's a very vague thing to try to google for, and I can't seem to find it. Are there any old-timers who remember the system call in question? Please let me know, -Dan Mahoney -- Dan Mahoney Techie, Sysadmin, WebGeek Gushi on efnet/undernet IRC ICQ: 13735144 AIM: LarpGM Site: http://www.gushi.org --- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Circumstance leading up to removal of perl from base?
Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote: Hello all, I know it was a long time ago, but I was talking with a co-worker about why perl was removed from the base in v5 -- I seem to recall a discussion on some mailing list about either the number of arguments or the format of the arguments and/or output of a base perl function having changed between 5.005 and 5.6.1. Thing is, that's a very vague thing to try to google for, and I can't seem to find it. Are there any old-timers who remember the system call in question? I dont think it was that. AFAICR the issue was mostly that it was a *lot* of work to mangle the perl build into bmake format so it would build with make world, and it was also difficult to avoid conflicts with other versions of perl that needed to be installed for port builds. It was just too difficult to maintain in the base system, especially when nothing used it. Kris ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Circumstance leading up to removal of perl from base?
Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote: Hello all, I know it was a long time ago, but I was talking with a co-worker about why perl was removed from the base in v5 -- I seem to recall a discussion on some mailing list about either the number of arguments or the format of the arguments and/or output of a base perl function having changed between 5.005 and 5.6.1. Thing is, that's a very vague thing to try to google for, and I can't seem to find it. Are there any old-timers who remember the system call in question? Please let me know, IIRC it was removed for other reasons. I seem to remember that it was problematic as few used the base perl, most used the port build which was often installed as a dependency anyway. I viewed it as a good thing as I always ended up installing a module or two, or six, from ports. No unused perl install, no issues with software getting confused about which perl to run, no need for... what was that command to use the port perl instead of the base perl? I cannot remember anymore. DAve -- Don't tell me I'm driving the cart! ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
