Re: [MacPerl] loving/hating MacPerl

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

Michael T Hammond <hammond@u.Arizona.EDU> writes:
>1. I had such trouble with the latest version of Perl5 that i finally
>deleted it off my harddrive and went way back and reinstalled 418. I kept
>getting system crashes, I was repeatedly rebuilding my desktop and doing
>disk repairs with Norton.

Hmm, does anybody share this experience? Constant crashes are definitely not
acceptable.

>3. suggestions for the next version of MacPerl (some of which I gather
>Matthias has already taken care of):
>
>a. get the interrupt key back

Done.

>b. add a file letting us know which files in the distribution are not
>essential and can be deleted.

It's all gradual. There's nothing preventing you to have an utterly fulfilling
Perl user career with nothing but the application itself. In general, you
want to have the lib and pod folder; what to keep in them is very much a matter
of taste and disk space.

> (I suppose I'm revealing too much naivete
> here, but I have yet to figure out what all the "t" directories are for.)

All the t directories in the ext folder provide small examples of MacPerl
Toolbox access. They are there because people were bitching about total lack
of examples to get started with Toolbox access.

>c. I have this sneaking suspicion that some of the problems I was
>experiencing were due to 'internet config' and 'shuck'. Can those be
>ditched?

Yes, but there is a 99.9% chance that Internet Config is innocent. Shuck tends
to deal badly with low memory situations and tends to seduce users into putting
it into low memory situations. I've never experienced MacPerl, Internet Config,
or Shuck trashing my harddisk or desktop DB.

>d. I'm gathering there is some sort of size limit on the 'MacPerl' window.

30K

>Is that necessary? 

Yes. TextEdit won't handle more. If I had time to spend on the MacPerl UI, it
would be wisely invested in replacing TextEdit with WASTE (I could even
integrate Shuck into MacPerl this way). However, I don't have the time do do
anything beyond bug fixes. My Mac playing time is currently invested in GUSI 2.

Matthias

-----
Matthias Neeracher   <neeri@iis.ee.ethz.ch>   http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri
  "Ain't true, but nobody argue with 'puters" -- Jess Mowry, _Six out Seven_