Re: [MacPerl] Re: fork (was: Microsoft funds Perl)

[Richard Gordon <maccgi@bellsouth.net>]

At 16:28 -0400 6/16/1999, Chris Nandor wrote:
> >Wouldn't all of this stuff become available under OS X without
> >getting involved in emulation schemes?
>
>It already is, in Mac OS X Server and Darwin, and will be there in Mac OS
>X, too.

Yes, I understand that, but that isn't what I was talking about. I 
presume that Perl on OS X Server and Darwin is virtually identical to 
Perl on mkLinux and is therefore basically just plain old unix perl.

>
> >My assumption is that if
> >MacPerl undergoes a rewrite for OS X, it would take advantage of any
> >native features of the OS and I further assume that fork() etc are
> >native features of OS X.
>
>Nope.  MacPerl will not be rewritten for Mac OS X, per se.  Perl already
>runs under Mac OS X.  I believe MacPerl might be rewritten to Carbon, so it
>can run in the Yellow Box or Blue Box, but perl already runs in the BSD
>layer of Mac OS X.  So it doesn't make much sense to rewrite a port of perl
>to run where perl runs natively, especially since it would no longer run
>where it doesn't.
>
>MacPerl is Perl for Mac OS.  Mac OS X is a different beast altogether.  It
>isn't Mac OS.

What I was talking about was a MacPerl rewrite that would take 
advantage of any OS X specific features that other flavors of unix 
perl don't offer. Otherwise, I agree that since Perl would already 
run under BSD, there's not really anything to rewrite.

Like what? Well, I don't know exactly, but my guess is that Apple 
will provide some interesting things on the interface side that will 
redress the horrors of present x-windows systems, so maybe there will 
continue to be some distinctively Mac things that you would want to 
be able to access via a real MacOSXPerl? Think hard and figure out a 
way to agree with me so that you and Vicki will be able to do a 
second edition of your book.  ;-]


Richard Gordon
--------------------
Gordon Consulting & Design
Database Design/Scripting Languages
mailto:richard@richardgordon.net
http://www.richardgordon.net
770.565.8267

===== Want to unsubscribe from this list?
===== Send mail with body "unsubscribe" to macperl-request@macperl.org