Re: [MacPerl] Microsoft funds Perl open-source effort

[Arved Sandstrom <Arved_37@chebucto.ns.ca>]

On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Douglas A. spore wrote:

> "Our mission is to make Perl as popular as possible," he said."
> 
> Anyone who believes this last statement is very nive. Just look at what MS
> did to Sun and Java, or for that matter the great majority of the teaming
> efforts that MS has undertaken. (editorial comment ;-)
> 
> I know that this is off topic but I thought that eveyone would like to know
> what is happening in the windoze comunity.
> 			Doug Spore
> 
I don't see this as being particularly sinister. It's a smart move on MS's
part, but I think they're also smart enough to recognize that they stand
to only lose if they push for a *WinPerl* dialect.

What they really need on Windows + Perl is what ActiveState has already
been doing, but more of the same. As it stands right now Perl on Windows
has problems - just look at the number of questions in the newsgroups.
Working in a DOS window just doesn't cut it in 1999, and access to the
Windows API is pathetic. You need a PhD just to get the ODBC and OLE stuff
properly working, the build process for XS is complicated and the AS PPM
repository is often behind, and I believe nobody on the planet has ever
successfully gotten IIS to work with Perl CGI. :-)

Windows is here to stay, and while it's my least favourite OS, there are
plenty of situations where I have to use it. And as such I like having
Perl available. So it's better that it's a smoothly-running Perl.

I just don't see that this is any different from the large effort Apple
puts into keeping Java a viable language on MacOS.

Arved



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