Re: [MacPerl] Perl Shared Library (was Re: [MacPerl] ports and

[Brian McNett <brianmc@telebyte.net>]

>Crashes are more frequent under MacOS than under *nix, yes.

Another point often missed here, is that the MacOS has excellent 
crash-recovery built in.  I know most people don't think of the MacOS as 
reliable enough for heavy-duty server use,  Crashes may be more frequent 
under MacOS than *nix, but when *nix crashes, it's more often from some 
serious hardware problem (as noted by others).  Don't even bother me with 
crashes under NT.

Properly configured, the Mac OS can reboot itself, load all the 
previously running applications, and restore itself to the condition it 
was in prior to the crash.  Not as nice as just killing and restarting 
the offending app, I'll admit, but practically bullet-proof in it's own 
right. Mycoinfo's webhost, Digital.Forest, past-masters of running Mac 
servers, have done a sterling job providing a server which was down only 
three days in the past year (while Digital.Forest was physically moving 
their entire offices across town!). 

>But crashes under MacOS are no more frequent with MacPerl runnning than not.
>At least in my experience.

I've only crashed once or twice under MacPerl (It was really my fault 
both times). It's a whole lot more stable than say, Netscape Navigator, 
which I might add crashes quite gracefully (terminates PPP when it does). 
 When Word crashes, I generally get NO error message, just complete 
lock-up.  Protected memory would be VERY nice, and it *IS* coming to the 
MacOS.  Meanwhile, we're all rather impatient for it.

>I have seen no reason to believe that MacPerl (or anything I am currently
>running, with the possible exception of the Finder :-) could be considered
>"crashy".

<rant>

I find that the Finder itself isn't particularly crashy either.  The 
problem tends to be badly-behaved applications (or badly behaved 
extensions (or combinations thereof)). [Don't just complain, contact the 
manufacturer and file a bug report!]  Under Unix, if an application 
misbehaves it only damages itself.  One can kill the process and move on. 
 The tendecy, however, is to blame the Mac OS for a badly misbehaving 
program, since with proprietary source one can't just jump in and fix the 
bad behavior.

Unix **is** the model OS.  Folks today bitch and complain too much.  They 
can't remember what the world was like before we had an OS that was 
portable to any machine that could be made to run C.  I was six in 1969, 
so *I* can't recall it.  Can you imagine having to build the entire OS in 
assembler, or toggle it in on the front-panel in machine code?  And have 
it work?  Unix's been around in one form or another for thirty years, and 
no one in their right mind considers it out-dated.  Will Mac OS X inherit 
some of this power and potential.  With Mach at its heart it can't fail 
to do so.  Why will Mach be at the core of Mac OS X?  Because Mach is 
Avie Tevanian's brainchild, and Avie is at Apple.  Avie gave us Mach.  
Linus gave us Linux. (what is it with these Finns!)

The Mac development community needs to adopt open-source whole-heartedly. 
With only a short interregum, during which Unix became a commercial 
product (and failed as one), Unix development has been done entirely buy 
a community of its most sophisticated users.  Even when Unix went 
commercial, the best tools came from Richard Stallman and the Free 
Software Foundation. A vote of confidence for Matthias for the sterling 
effort bringing a Unix tool as useful as Perl to the Mac. And to everyone 
else for porting the best modules and ensuring that the ports find their 
way back into the 'official' releases where it's appropriate.

If you're pro-Mac *AND* pro open-source, please don't knock Unix.  The 
Mac will never aspire to *be* Unix, but we can take what we admire from 
Unix and implement it on the Mac OS.  Apple has a habit of picking the 
brains of people out here in the community when it comes to adding 
features to the OS (usually because they hire them).  There are many 
people on this list who use and admire (or in my case simply admire) Unix 
for what it is (Kick A** multiuser/server OS, not for the learning 
impaired).  We ignore some of the Mac OS' flaws because the rest of it is 
so fantastic.  Ditto for Unix.

</rant>

--Brian

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