From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jul 12 09:26:58 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 48087106568D; Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:26:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@parodius.com) Received: from mx01.sc1.parodius.com (mx01.sc1.parodius.com [72.20.106.3]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2590B8FC70; Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:26:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@parodius.com) Received: by mx01.sc1.parodius.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 21DE01CC095; Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:26:55 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:26:55 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick To: David Southwell Message-ID: <20080712092655.GA8371@eos.sc1.parodius.com> References: <200807100340.38399.david@vizion2000.net> <200807111449.55648.david@vizion2000.net> <4877D0E3.4000303@FreeBSD.org> <200807120229.06772.david@vizion2000.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200807120229.06772.david@vizion2000.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) Cc: Remko Lodder , freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: portupgrade to Perl 5.10.0 ?? X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:26:58 -0000 On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 02:29:06AM -0700, David Southwell wrote: > Here is a full and verbatim copy of my original posting that started this > thread. > _________________________________________________________________ > Subject: portupgrade to Perl 5.10.0 ?? > From: David Southwell > To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org > > Hi > > Just wondered when an upgrade to 5.10.0 could be expected. > > David > ___________________________________________ > > Are you seriously telling me you "understand" something "between the lines" in > that? > > Come on -- smile a little...and I hope you will find a more constructive & > creative use for magination than that!!! > > I do not think it is unreasonable to say the original posting was straight > forward and certainly cast no aspersions. The same thing cannot be said of > some responses. You simply want to know if the perl port being upgraded to 5.10 is in the works, and if there's any idea of when it will be completed. I think this is a reasonable request, open-source project or otherwise. > I wonder whether someone could endeavour to answer the original question > constructively rather than defensively. I'm not responsible for the perl port, so I can't speak for tobez@. If you're a generic developer who uses perl, and 5.10 offers you fixes or features you need, I can see how you might think the upgrade is simple. But I can tell you that upgrading perl is one of those "sensitive" things from a system administrator's perspective. The thing with perl is that the language has a history of minor revisions inducing "customer chaos" -- that is to say, you upgrade from 5.4 to 5.8 and suddenly you have a bunch of users filling your mailbox with "My script doesn't work any more!!! What did you do?" and "Why exactly did you upgrade to 5.8? The memory footprint is larger, and it's breaking on this third-party module I use, please revert..." Believe me, this actually happens, and I have witnessed it on multiple occasions at past jobs. Let's not forget that perl is a very large piece of the ports tree. There are 3150 ports that start with "p5-". What guarantee is there that every one works with 5.10? Sure, it's a matter of trial and error and waiting for users to submit PRs informing maintainers which piece doesn't work with 5.10, but that takes time -- time that one FreeBSD user may have, but another does not. Then there's the whole dependency thing. perl in recent days has been adding more and more modules to the base perl distribution; what used to be an add-on module is now included with perl, so ports have to be updated to be aware of that fact. When such a commit (e.g. 5.8 --> 5.10) hits the tree, users and ports maintainers will have to race to see what works and what doesn't. I'm not trying to justify what other people have told you, but you need to keep in mind that changes to the perl port can have dire repercussions -- treading lightly is an absolute necessity. Does this inadvertently answer your questions? :-) -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |