Re: [MacPerl] installing libraries in mac perl

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

On Tue, 19 Oct 1999, Chris Nandor wrote:

> Unless I have already convinced you otherwise :), do you have any thoughts
> aside from the README of what should be changed?  Give some examples,
> please.

You haven't convinced me.  The best course is simplicity.  Simplicity is
one Readme in the top directory.  

I'll tell you why, but first I'll tell a short story which is irrelevant,
and which you can disregard since it doesn't mean anything to you and
might be impossible or misleading or downright confusing if you did read
it.  But if it is useless, why include it?  Will Larry Wall be proud that
you left his words entirely intact, but ruined the intent of the Readme:  
one file which sums up how to get started.  He (or someone) wrote a readme
appropriate for a certain situation.  Why would he demand that the
irrelevant portions be kept?

I'm thinking a simple script could auto-morph the Perl Readme to a Mac
readme.  (This script would be run as part of MacPerl compilation, NOT by
the end user.)  Perhaps the officially sanctioned method is to have a
universal readme for all perls, and platform specifics in a separate file.  
This is a nice concept, but it works poorly in this situation.

First, The general readme has platform specific instructions, so MacPerl
has to modify it to tell users to ignore those instructions.  If it must
be modified at all, let's do it right.  Why make people pick through, skip
over, and jump around the documentation?  Sure they _can_ do it, but why
make them?

The second problem is that for at least the Mac platform, because of the
HUGE difference between a GUI and a command line program, the
platform-specifc instructions dominate the general info in importance.


Let me analogize again.  People have different standards of cleanliness
and order.  But I think the few piles of dirty laundry in the living room
do tend to put off guests.  Sure, few if any visitors will immediately
turn around and leave.  Cleaning the clothes up, even if it means just
banishing them to another room, will make a better impression.  Not life
or death, just nice.  Good impressions can be important for winning new
friends.





--
MattLangford 



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