Re: [MacPerl] Installing on Users' Macs

[David Rouse <cn1407@coastalnet.com>]

On 12/5/98 at 9:34 AM, bart.lateur@skynet.be (Bart Lateur) wrote:

>I have counted the number of files in MacPerl's Lib folder (not by
>hand!). I come at 575 files, bare install (5.20r4). The file content to
>disk space ratio is quite low, as many files are only a few k. This
>"waste" is part of the problem, as far as the uninformed user is
>concerned.
>
>To run small applets, you DON'T NEED most of those library files. In
>fact, you hardly need any at all. A lot of the time, the MacPerl app
>alone, is enough.

Is this install problem really a problem?

First off, the "save-as" runtime file built by MacPerl don't seem that large to
me. The sing.pl recently posted here turns into a 1,657,342 byte file, is that
large?

Secondly, after three years in a Mac network admin job I have never had the kind
of trouble with users killing files that some people seem to be worried about.
Even morons can be told that everything outside thier documents folder is
off-limits.

At worst, here is a suggested solution:

Make a user version of the MacPerl program that doesn't have a text editor, just
a way to set prefs and open and run scripts. Make that program a "control panel"
with the "user", "advanced" and "admin" preferences controls you see on Apple's
TCP/IP panel.

Install all other library files in a MacPerl folder in (sorry, but it does seem
a good place for libraries) the Extensions folder. Then forget about the pod
stuff and documentation, but have a note somewhere about how to get the full
version.

That would give you a standard way to install MacPerl (or check an existing
MacPerl's version) for a user during an installation of a perl script.

DRouse
Not a MacPerl guru, just a happy user ...
(pretty soon my Co's websites [internal and external] will be automated with
MacPerl, thanks in large measure to the support from this group!)



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