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Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:34:12 -0600
From: "DePriest, Jason R." <jrdepriest AT gmail DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: activestate perl on cygwin
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On 1/10/07, Kevin T Cella  wrote:
> Offer an alternative. As I mentioned in my original post, I got this script
> online. In using it I found it was not sufficient, I started this thread in
> the hopes that someone would provide me with a better wrapper script.
> Instead I got a bunch of replies about how it is a bad idea to use
> Activestate with cygwin. My scripts are written to make my life on Windows
> easier, so that means using Windows specific code to automate common tasks.
> Ideally I'd prefer to stay in a pure Linux environment, but for reasons I do
> not need to go into, I am stuck with Windows. It was my understanding that
> the intent of this mailing list was to offer a place to discuss issues
> involving cygwin and develop solutions to those problems. Seeing as I do not
> have a whole lot of free time to research a better solution, I hoped a quick
> answer would be provided via this medium. While I appreciate the suggestions
> that have been made on this thread, I want to install two copies of the perl
> interpreter or port my existing scripts to cygwin as that appears to be the
> compromise. Are there any other ideas?

I use both ActiveState Perl (I purchase a Perl Developer's Kit license
from them every year actually) and the perl in cygwin.

I use them each in their appropriate environment, which means I don't
run Windows specific scripts under cygwin.

I never bothered asking anyone on this list to help me overcome that
limitation because cygwin isn't Windows and the ActiveState Perl
distribution I use is designed to work with Windows and supports
modules precompiled for Windows.

CPAN is awesome and can download and compile modules for me in cygwin
(as long as I am not behind a proxy server), but, yes, there are some
modules that will not compile under cygwin because it is listed as not
supported.

You can get the Win32 module and Win32::GUI for cygwin perl and that
is about it.

I'm guessing if you want other modules to work under cygwin, someone
will eventually suggest you see how those were made to work and do it
yourself.

That's cruel and sort of mean, but that is the way things are in this
particular volunteer-based project.

I miss the Windows-specific modules that make things in ActiveState
Perl super-easy when I am in cygwin.  One of the reasons I buy a PDK
membership every year is so I can use ActiveStates perlapp tool.  I
tweak my scripts under native Windows, use perlapp to exe'ify them,
and then I can run them from wherever.

As long as I refer to paths using the forward slash notation (perl
will accept forward or backward slashes and translate as appropriate),
I don't have problems.

I think the wrapper script idea is neat, but prone to errors and
complications that would make any of your work more difficult to
debug.  But if that is the route you want to go, fantastic.  The ideas
that have been presented in this thread should be enough to get you
started in the right direction.

Have you posted anything to the ActiveState mailing lists?  They have
a perl-win32 users list that might have some experienced users.

Or if you are truly seeking perl enlightenment, try perlmonks.org.
They have transcended beyond WJM over there and take to challenges
like flies on... well something flies would like a lot.

Good luck anyway, but this has severely grown off topic (from a cygwin
standpoint) and, though I haven't heard this one in a while, you may
be asked to TITTTL.

-Jason

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