Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
brian pink wrote: My big question, and one I didn't see clearly articulated on their site, is why would you use this install? any takers? People would use ActivePerl for OS X for the same reason Windows users use ActivePerl: they need to execute Perl scripts for one reason or another but can't cope with the command line. Even those who have the knowledge to build Perl from source, as I have many times, welcome the convenience of binaries. Also, ppm is somewhat easier to use than CPAN.pm.
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
On Jun 8, 2005, at 9:41 AM, Janet Goldstein wrote: People would use ActivePerl for OS X for the same reason Windows users use ActivePerl Windows users use ActivePerl because Windows doesn't ship with Perl. they need to execute Perl scripts for one reason or another but can't cope with the command line. ... which is the only alternative on Windows. On Mac OS X, there *is* an alternative, which is to use the Perl that came with the OS. The choice isn't between installing ActivePerl and building Perl from source; it's between installing ActivePerl and doing nothing at all. Even those who have the knowledge to build Perl from source, as I have many times, welcome the convenience of binaries. Also, ppm is somewhat easier to use than CPAN.pm. The best reason to use ActivePerl on Mac OS X is, I think, PPM. Lots of people have trouble compiling modules from source; using PPM means you don't have to do that. sherm-- Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
IIRC, I think I actually used CPAN on ActiveState's perl on MSWindows when I was doing perl on MSWindows several years back. I think I dug an old version of nmake up in Microsoft's support site or something, didn't have anything that needed to be compiled. I'm not a big fan of ActiveState partly because of PPM and partly because of their license, but it did the job. -- Joel Rees Opinions are like armpits. We all have two, and they all smell, but we really don't want the other guy to get rid of his.
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
On Wed, 8 Jun 2005, Sherm Pendley wrote: On Jun 8, 2005, at 9:41 AM, Janet Goldstein wrote: People would use ActivePerl for OS X for the same reason Windows users use ActivePerl Windows users use ActivePerl because Windows doesn't ship with Perl. FWIW, ActiveState Perl is also available for Solaris; they also make software available for AIX, HP-UX, etc. I'm not sure if these systems tend to ship with Perl, but I know that Perl often runs on them. In that light, I'm actually a little surprised that they didn't have a version for Mac OS X sooner than this. The timing of the announcement seems curious to me... -- Chris Devers
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
On 2005.6.8, at 11:59 PM, Chris Devers wrote: On Wed, 8 Jun 2005, Sherm Pendley wrote: On Jun 8, 2005, at 9:41 AM, Janet Goldstein wrote: People would use ActivePerl for OS X for the same reason Windows users use ActivePerl Windows users use ActivePerl because Windows doesn't ship with Perl. FWIW, ActiveState Perl is also available for Solaris; they also make software available for AIX, HP-UX, etc. I'm not sure if these systems tend to ship with Perl, but I know that Perl often runs on them. In that light, I'm actually a little surprised that they didn't have a version for Mac OS X sooner than this. They have in the past. The timing of the announcement seems curious to me... WWDC? -- Chris Devers
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
At 9:41 am -0400 8/6/05, Janet Goldstein wrote: Even those who have the knowledge to build Perl from source, as I have many times, welcome the convenience of binaries. Also, ppm is somewhat easier to use than CPAN.pm. Amen to both. From Jaguar onwards I have probably done a dozen or so installations of Perl, and not for fun but to have access among other things to the Unicode developments that have taken place over this period. I would like to have been paid for the time and the frustration involved especially at the beginning -- in fact I would be fairly rich if I'd been paid for the time it took the installer itself without counting my own time. Getting CPAN to behave is also a black art. During this time I have updated my Win32 machines with every update of the ActiveState distribution at the cost of clicking a few buttons. I am sure there are 36 different reasons for controlling special installations through the command line but for me, and I guess the majority of Perl users, they are irrelevant. To use the Perl that came with the OS, as Sherm recommends, is simply not satisfactory when important developments are happening within Perl. The Perls that shipped with Jaguar and with Panther were already aeons out of date when these were released. Why does not Apple update Perl through sofware update? JD
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
On Jun 8, 2005, at 11:38 AM, John Delacour wrote: To use the Perl that came with the OS, as Sherm recommends, is simply not satisfactory when important developments are happening within Perl. I recommended no such thing. I simply pointed out that a Windows user who wants to run a Perl script doesn't have the option of using the built-in Perl, because there is none. Mac OS X users *do* have that option, and for many it's a perfectly viable choice. sherm-- Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
On 6/8/05 Sherm Pendley wrote: On Jun 8, 2005, at 11:38 AM, John Delacour wrote: To use the Perl that came with the OS, as Sherm recommends, is simply not satisfactory when important developments are happening within Perl. I recommended no such thing. I simply pointed out that a Windows user who wants to run a Perl script doesn't have the option of using the built-in Perl, because there is none. Mac OS X users *do* have that option, and for many it's a perfectly viable choice. In fact, it's a better choice for many who develop for deployment on others' machines. Proportionally, very few machines in the world have the latest Perl. For my own self-use stuff, John's point about new developments in Perl (like Unicode) is relevant. But I have scripts running in several clients' old boxes that do their jobs with no need to improve. And I still maintain some CGI scripts using Perl 4 at some ISPs who keep the older Perl (alongside newer) as a legacy courtesy to longtime customers. In this case 'maintain' means Don't cost them any money unless it directly benefits productivity. With OS X, many Mac owners might want my data utilities to work without having to upgrade their Perl beyond the system install, and to keep working without my help when they upgrade to Ocelot or Cheshire Cat or whatever in a few years. It's just a reality. Arguing about whether I would/could/should try to persuade these folks to upgrade their Perl is non-productive :-) - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
On Wed, 8 Jun 2005, John Delacour wrote: Why does not Apple update Perl through sofware update? As I understand it, the rationale is that a lot of things depend on the release of Perl that shipped with the system -- installers, startup scripts, periodic daemons, etc. If Perl were to be upgraded, then all the things that depend on it would need additional rounds of QA testing with each release, but they don't have the resources to support this. Let's say, as a plausible example, that the iTunes installer uses Perl for initial setup. As it is now, any iTunes update on Panther needs to be tested with Perl 5.8.1, and any update on Tiger needs to be tested against 5.8.6; all other releases can be ignored. If Apple were to release revisions to Perl as they come out, then they'd have to start testing each Panther version against all Perls 5.8.1, and all Tiger versions would have to be tested aginst 5.8.6. (And that's not even mentioning Jaguar, which might [?] still get iTunes updates, so that would be all Perls from 5.6.1 and up.) Clearly, things start multiplying fast. And every combination in the matrix of release versions would have to be tested, as different people will have different system update levels, some will have skipped some packages, etc. So, while I do wish that they made it simpler to put a newer version of Perl somewhere like /usr/local, I can sympathize with the rationale for not tampering with the version that ships as standard with each major iteration of the system. -- Chris Devers
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
David Cantrell wrote: John Delacour wrote: Getting CPAN to behave is also a black art. I wonder what you're doing wrong, then. I'm not the only one. There's a couple modules that I haven't been able to get to compile lately, such as WebService::GoogleHack, and I don't know why it's not working. Yes, I entered the google key and the paths, but the tests tell me nothing except that it failed. -- Lola - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.lolajl.net | Blog at http://www.lolajl.net/blog/ Terrorismus delendus est! (Terrorism must be destroyed utterly!) I'm in Bowie, MD, USA, halfway between DC and Annapolis.
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
Lola Lee wrote: David Cantrell wrote: John Delacour wrote: Getting CPAN to behave is also a black art. I wonder what you're doing wrong, then. I'm not the only one. There's a couple modules that I haven't been able to get to compile lately, such as WebService::GoogleHack, and I don't know why it's not working. Yes, I entered the google key and the paths, but the tests tell me nothing except that it failed. I'd be inclined to think that the module author has screwed up, rather than that CPAN is at fault. -- David Cantrell | top google result for internet beard fetish club I often think that if we Brits had any gratitude in our hearts, we would put up a statue to Heinz Guderian - who probably saved us from ruin by booting our Army off the continent before we could do ourselves real harm. -- Mike Stone, in soc.history.what-if
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
erm try Cpanplus maybe? I understood that Cpan was no longer being actively developed. Robin On 9 Jun 2005, at 05:43, David Cantrell wrote: Lola Lee wrote: David Cantrell wrote: John Delacour wrote: Getting CPAN to behave is also a black art. I wonder what you're doing wrong, then. I'm not the only one. There's a couple modules that I haven't been able to get to compile lately, such as WebService::GoogleHack, and I don't know why it's not working. Yes, I entered the google key and the paths, but the tests tell me nothing except that it failed. I'd be inclined to think that the module author has screwed up, rather than that CPAN is at fault. -- David Cantrell | top google result for internet beard fetish club I often think that if we Brits had any gratitude in our hearts, we would put up a statue to Heinz Guderian - who probably saved us from ruin by booting our Army off the continent before we could do ourselves real harm. -- Mike Stone, in soc.history.what-if
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jan Dubois) wrote: Today ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X. ActivePerl 5.8.7 for Mac OS X is now available for free download from: http://www.ActiveState.com/Products/ActivePerl/ And besides, ActiveState will make sure Perl and XS will run on Mac OS X/Intel! -- Chris Nandor [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://pudge.net/ Open Source Technology Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ostg.com/
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
On 2005.6.8, at 04:24 AM, Lola Lee wrote: John Delacour wrote: Very nice and most welcome, though still not as easy as the Windows installation. May I suggest that you include at least the configuration notes in the distribution. Once I had returned to the AS site and found the necessary link, I was able to get 5.8.7 working without any trouble http://ASPN.ActiveState.com/ASPN/docs/ActivePerl/5.8/ install.html#os%20x%20configuration Well, this info is in the ReadMe note as well as in the installer, I believe. I ran it a couple hours ago and saw the note. Would it not be possible also to allow the user an option to adopt his current CPAN configuration? That would be nice, but maybe there's a reason why Active State did it this way? They're pushing their own alternative to CPAN. -- Joel Rees If God had meant for us to not tweak our source code, He'd've given us Microsoft.
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
On Jun 7, 2005, at 11:54 AM, Chris Nandor wrote: In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jan Dubois) wrote: Today ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X. ActivePerl 5.8.7 for Mac OS X is now available for free download from: http://www.ActiveState.com/Products/ActivePerl/ And besides, ActiveState will make sure Perl and XS will run on Mac OS X/Intel! That's certainly a load off my mind. There's still the question of ffcall or ffi, but one or the other will almost certainly be updated - it's just a matter of time. sherm-- Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
My big question, and one I didn't see clearly articulated on their site, is why would you use this install? any takers? - brian
RE: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
On Tue, 07 Jun 2005, brian pink wrote: My big question, and one I didn't see clearly articulated on their site, is why would you use this install? Some reasons I can come up with: * You want to use the latest maintenance version of Perl and not wait until Apple updates OS X. Panther ships with 5.8.1-RC3 and Tiger with 5.8.6. ActivePerl allows you to install 5.8.7 now. We plan to always have ActivePerl releases shortly after new Perl maintenance releases come out. * You want to install additional CPAN modules without installing the Xcode Tools to get a C compiler etc. ActivePerl includes PPM to install precompiled modules from the ActiveState repository. * You want to get a full set of searchable HTML docs for your Perl installation that is accessible from Apple Help. There are at least 2 reasons right now where the system Perl is better: * ActivePerl does not yet include wxPerl. * ActivePerl does not yet include mod_perl. But since ActivePerl does not modify/overwrite your system Perl you can use both in parallel if you need to. Cheers, -Jan
