Re:[MacPerl] We need more evangelism...

[Matthew Langford <langfml [at] eng [dot] auburn [dot] edu>]

On Sun, 19 Jul 1998, Vicki Brown wrote:
> This does not state "The default Perl distribution as downloadable from the
> CPAN builds out of the box without additions or changes on...". It does not
> state "the standard Perl distribution directly supports..." Some people may
> be reading it that way, but that is not what it _says_.
> 
> The statement as made says "Perl builds on" and "[these platforms] are
> "supported".  Mac OS is not in the list. I don't like the implications; we
> have enough trouble convincing people MacOS is real without wondering why
> we're not in that list.
> 
> Some of us get picky about this sort of thing ;-)

Perl has made a distinction for quite a while between platforms that are
supported by the standard distribution and platforms whose support is
handled by a third party independent of the core.  The latter are called
"ports" and typically haven't been mentioned in the standard
announcements (except to occasionally mention all the ports and the ports
page).

As others have pointed out, supporting the standard distribution would
require among other things a standard compiler toolset, a make utility,
and a command line to run both scripts and the interpreter.  Practically
every other operating system under the sun has these.  Matthias is
amazing, but this is a bit much for even him to do while he's working on
his thesis.  Now, after the thesis is done... 

You mentioned that Solaris doesn't come with a bundled compiler, but of
course Solaris is almost invariably the first platform supported by gcc
and all manner of open source tools--gnu make, gnu gas (assembler),
etc--and does have ar, ld, and other tools which make the "typical"
installation process.

I'd be interested to see a Mac "make" tool, which could try valiantly to
convert a standard Unix makefile to AppleScript commands to fire off to
CodeWarrior or MPW as the case may be to run the appropriate tool (of
course it would handle directory parsing, file modification dates, and
dependencies internally).  Maybe that wouldn't be the course to take; 
maybe it should instead convert the Makefile to an MPW makefile or a
skeleton CodeWarrior project file (and try to cleverly guess which extra
libs to include :).  Of course the makefile can invoke on commandline
tools which it builds--I'm not sure how you would do that in CodeWarrior.
Or maybe that alien brain transplant is really starting to affect me, and
I should stop thinking for a while. :) 

> point that MacPerl is as real a port of Perl as the Amiga port.  (Paul says
> of the Amiga port "The point is, it is no longer a port.".  No, sorry, it's
> still a port. It's just easier to get).

This is the confusion between your usage of the word "port" and the
traditional Perl release usage.  Perhaps evangelism will convince them to
modify their usage.


I think there might be some consensus growing that having a separate set
of MacPerl additions + the standard distribution would be a Good Thing for
a future goal--although I, for one, haven't felt the need to build MacPerl
from scratch.  But that's about as close as I can see getting under the
current MacOS.  If MacOS X _is_ SUfficiently Close To Unix (SUCTU), then
maybe Matthias will be able to drop the IDE and work on Toolbox support.
And MacPerl will be strikingly like Unix perl (maybe become CPAN parts).

I've got to say, I keep getting these subliminal messages from reading
this list.  I feel like I need to go out and buy MPPE, and write some
wacky, zany tool complete with a Mac interface.  Not an altogether
unpleasant urge.



--
MattLangford 


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