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Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2007 10:58:25 -0500
From: "Brian Mathis" <brian DOT mathis AT gmail DOT com>
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Subject: Re: Wish Setup would accept my Perl
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On Nov 7, 2007 10:44 AM, Andrew DeFaria <Andrew AT defaria DOT com> wrote:
> DePriest, Jason R. wrote:
> > I once, like you, wondered why I couldn't just have one installation
> > of Perl or Python that works in either environment. Since I write
> > scripts, not code,
>
> An aside? How is a Perl script not Perl code?!? Just wondering...
>
> > I assumed it was because it was just too hard to do and began to use
> > each program in its appropriate place.
>
> Hmmm... I'm curious. As you said you have both AS Perl and Cygwin's
> Perl. Now you say use each one where it is appropriate. I can't think of
> a reason why using one or the other is more appropriate than the other.
> As you state below regarding PPM, AS Perl is obviously Windows centric
> and Cygwin's Perl is admittedly Posix centric. Being as I don't see many
> Unix/Linux Perls with a Window's centric viewpoint I would think that
> sticking with Posix through and through (including CPAN rather than the
> uniquely AS PPM) would provide the best shot at being the most portable
> out of the gate!

How about if you are writing a Windows application?  What if you need
to manipulate the Registry or access Win32::OLE objects?  You
certainly need AS Perl for that.  It's not hard to imagine why you'd
need a Windows-centric version.

> Granted the programmer also needs be concerned about what he's about to
> do and whether or not that will be portable to "the other side". All too
> often the lazy programmer cops out and says "Well this'll never be run
> on Unix/Linux anyway. It's not a requirement", etc. and wham you have
> platform dependent code being made. Indeed search for a Unix/Linux Perl
> that will provide a Win32 backend or other Windows only concepts. You
> probably will not find one.
>
> However if the programmer bears in mind portability from the start then
> the chances are high that the code will port with little effort. IOW the
> real common denominator here is Posix, NOT Win32! And I have had many
> years of direct experience that tells me that this indeed is the case.
>
> > PS - I use PPM to manage perl modules for ActiveState Perl and cpan to
> > manage modules for cygwin perl. PPM is super-Windows-centric.
> --
> Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>


Portability is not the be-all, end-all purpose of an application, and
eschewing it is not necessarily laziness.  It's actually pretty low on
the list of priorities.  Normally "getting the job done" is higher on
the list.  For most people, the goal of scripting is to accomplish a
task, like data processing or automation.  Each of those goals is
almost guaranteed to interact with some other proprietary part of the
system that is also not portable.  That's the difference between
coding an app and scripting.  Scripting is more often the glue between
other parts.

That's not to say that you can't also write a portable, full-blown
application in Perl, but that's coming from a different perspective.
Maybe that's where the differences lay here, in the perspective.

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