[MacPerl Announcement] Release 5.1.0r2 and roadmap for the next few months

[Matthias Ulrich Neeracher <neeri@iis.ee.ethz.ch>]

MacPerl 5.1.0 (corresponding to Unix patchlevel 5.002_01) is
now available at ftp://ftp.switch.ch/software/mac/perl/ and
ftp://err.ethz.ch/pub/neeri/MacPerl/. In a few days, it should
be all over CPAN (See bottom of message for URLs).

On this occasion, I would like to outline my plans for the next 4-6 months:

 - The source distribution for this release and the OSA Component will follow
   later this week.
 - For various timing reasons, I didn't upgrade to 5.003 yet. I plan to
   upgrade to 5.004 as soon as possible after it's released.
 - I will also try to fix bugs reported to me, and to generally move toward
   harmonization of the core sources with the Unix distribution (by
   contributing patches).
 - Beyond that, I'll avoid MacPerl work for the next few months to focus
   my limited resources on the elusive GUSI II project.
 - Dick Munroe made me a very generous offer to take over the mailing lists.
   This would have advantages both for you (digests, to name only an obvious
   one) and me (massively reduced administrative overhead). Now the release
   is out the door, I'd like to turn towards working out the details on the
   transition; we'll let you know the result.

RELEASE NOTES

5.1.0r2 21Oct96
 - Upgraded the Perl core to patchlevel 5.002_01. This should cause several
   bugs in the perl core to vanish.
 - Made MakeMaker work on the Mac with lots of help and moral support from
   Andreas Kšnig.
 - Many toolbox modules now included. Added a few examples in :ext:
 - Added "Shuck", a direct POD viewer, as a lightweight documentation
   alternative to WWW browsers. To use it, open Internet Config and add
   "Shuck" as the helper for "pod".
 - Tried fixing unsigned long problems with time values [Stewart Holt].
 - Modified and unmodified scripts had different current directories for
        "Run Front Window" [Matthias Schmitt].
 - Stop hogging the preferences file, only open it when immediately 
   needed [Toni Harbaugh]
 - Fix MacPerl::Quit to work for fat runtimes. Also introduce symbolic¬
   constants [Tom Holub].
 - MacPerl::Ask() was broken when the user specified an empty string [Sam
   Choukri].
 - Command-. for the 68K MPW tool was broken for a long time 
   [Paul Patton, Chris Thorman].
 - Horizontal scroll bar thumb actions were accidentally misinterpreted as 
   vertical actions [Alan Fry].
 - Fixed various problems with BBEdit interaction [Brian Foy]
 - Fixed hardcoded characters in ftp.pl [Danny Thomas]
 - Work around integerizing problem affecting Time::Local [Diller Ryan]

FTP SITES

ftp.switch.ch [130.59.1.40]             software/mac/perl
err.ethz.ch                             pub/neeri/MacPerl

This site is mirrored at

ftp.share.com      pub/macperl
mors.gsfc.nasa.gov /pub/MacPerl/Applications

and in a huge number of CPAN (Common Perl Archive Network) mirror sites: 

North America

Florida 
    ftp://ftp.cis.ufl.edu/pub/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/
Illinois 
    ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/lang/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/ 
Massachusetts 
    ftp://ftp.delphi.com/pub/mirrors/packages/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/ 
Oklahoma 
    ftp://ftp.uoknor.edu/mirrors/CPAN/ports/mac/  
Texas 
    ftp://ftp.sedl.org/pub/mirrors/CPAN/ports/mac/  
    ftp://ftp.sterling.com/programming/languages/perl/ports/mac/  

Europe

Finland 
    ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/ 
France 
    ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/  
    ftp://ftp.pasteur.fr/pub/computing/unix/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/  
Germany 
    ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/programming/languages/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/  
    ftp://ftp.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pub/programming/languages/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/  
Great Britain 
    ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/mirrors/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/  
The Netherlands 
    ftp://ftp.cs.ruu.nl/pub/PERL/CPAN/ports/mac/  
Portugal 
    ftp://ftp.ci.uminho.pt/pub/lang/perl/ports/mac/  
Sweden 
    ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/lang/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/  
Switzerland 
    ftp://ftp.switch.ch/mirror/CPAN/ports/mac/  

Australasia

Australia 
    ftp://coombs.anu.edu.au/pub/perl/ports/mac/  
    ftp://ftp.mame.mu.oz.au/pub/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/  
New Zealand 
    ftp://ftp.tekotago.ac.nz/pub/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/  

Asia

Japan 
    ftp://ftp.lab.kdd.co.jp/lang/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/  
Taiwan 
    ftp://dongpo.math.ncu.edu.tw/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/  

Africa

South Africa 
    ftp://ftp.is.co.za/programming/perl/CPAN/ports/mac/