Re: [MacPerl] weak FAQ link

["Paul J. Schinder" <schinder@pobox.com>]

On Tue, Apr 21, 1998 at 11:51:18AM -0700, Xah Lee wrote:
} At 07:03 AM -0700 1998.04.21, George Michel wrote:
} >As a MacPerl user and fan I was pleased to see that the latest release
} >appeared on MacCentral.  I was surprised that the info link sent me to a
} >FAQ that was last updated in July of '96.  Wouldn't the MacPerl Pages or
} >the MacPerl Homepage would be better?  At this point, I think with Power
} >and Ease an outdated FAQ is not worth citing until it is updated. 
} 
} Yes, I bitched about this before. In MacSripting community, MacPerl
} is very quite and neglected. AppleScript and Frontier take over the
} show, in that order. AppleScript, because it comes with every
} Mac. Frontier because it's author is actively trumpeting it, together
} with its Windows version.

Since Winer left the MacScrpiting list, it's pretty much an all
AppleScript show.  I've seen very little mention of Frontier anywhere
recently.  Anyway, Matthias is still on that list and has contributed
recently, I'm still there.  It's just that that list is full of people
who'd rather have no solution to a problem than a MacPerl solution.
(Speaking as someone who's going to enjoy all the bitching and moaning
on that list about broken scripts when AppleScript goes PPC native and
all those horrible tight loops that they use to imitate rational flow
control suddenly grab the processor.)


} 
} I've been in the scripting community since 3 years, but not until
} last year I got into MacPerl. This is primarily due to: (1) People in
} Applescript isn't very aware and familiar with Unix/Perl, and
} consequently few people learn it and less talk about it. (2) People in
} Frontier community think they are gods. Like the AppleScript camp,
} they are also primarily Mac users and don't know Unix much. Few know
} Perl and most see no NEED. (3) The presence of MacPerl on the web
} SUCKS. When I was looking around MacPerl, all the related documents
} (FAQs, Links) are outdated by a year or so. (and probably still are,
} as George Michel mentioned. At the time, the PrimeTime site just
} started) I think a partial reason for this is that people who knew
} Perl/MacPerl don't care much about AppleScript or Frontier. Since
} there are tons of Perl related information on the web, they neglected
} to provide enough info to welcome scripters who don't have a Unix
} background. (and btw, Unix folks in general have !!
} a sense of granduer. Very few realize it's a system that's severely
} brain-damaged. (^_^) )
}

Ahh, well, we don't realize it because it isn't true.  There are a lot
of reasons to use Unix rather than MacOS.  (For example, at this very
moment I'm using ssh from work into my Mac running LinuxPPC, which simply
isn't possible under MacOS.)   Rhapsody is Unix based for some very good
reasons.

[snip] 

} Another thing is that the MacPerl distribution assumes the user has
} a background in Unix too, thus almost none info is provided for
} intelligent (Macintosh) users who are interested in getting to know
} Perl. Speaking for myself, when I first downloaded MacPerl, I'm quite
} turned off by lack of tutorials, introductions, and **MacPerl**
} documentations. e.g. There isn't explaination on what Shuck/POD are,
} or "how to run your first script", or "What is Perl?", or even full
} documentation on the MacPerl menus/settings... etc. The situation is
} very unwholesome. (but again, Perl position itself as more or less a
} scripting language for programers, as opposed to AppleScript. And,
} Perl has quite different utilities compared to
} AppleScript/Frontier. But still, it's good to have complete
} documentations that also welcome beginners...)

That's life.  Perl began in Unix and it shows, and some knowledge of
Unix makes it much easier to use MacPerl, especially when trying to
use CPAN modules.  (For example, Net::DNS runs out of the box under
MacPerl, provided you know what an /etc/resolv.conf file contains.)
Somehow most of us have managed, so why can't others?  The book will
make it easier (and allow the rest of us to say RTFB :-)).

} 
}  Xah xah@best.com
}  http://www.best.com/~xah/PageTwo_dir/
}  "Suck: Unix; Sucker: C; Suckest: Perl".
} 

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