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From: Gary Clark II <gclarkii@main.gbdata.com>
Message-Id: <199603200802.CAA10056@main.gbdata.com>
Subject: Re: perl4
To: alk@Think.COM (Tony Kimball)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 02:02:16 -0600 (CST)
Cc: current@freefall.freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199603192239.QAA18506@compound> from "Tony Kimball" at Mar 19, 96 04:39:06 pm
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Hello,

WARNING: slight flamage ahead....

Tony Kimball wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>    I don't think this is a good argument:
>    - - you already have perl in /usr/bin  AND  in /usr/local/bin!
> 
Perl 4 is ONLY in /usr/bin. You might have added perl5 to the system
or made a copy.


> So remove them both from the base distribution.  p4 can be made a
> package at zero-maintenance cost.  How much breaks, and how hard is
> it to fix?
Perl IS the sys admin language of choice.  Many systems now ship perl
with the distribution like we do.  Thats why I brought it in.

> 
> ./bin/makewhatis: a /usr/bin/perl script text
> ./bin/catman: a /usr/bin/perl script text
> ./bin/killall: a /usr/bin/perl script text
> ./bin/sgmlfmt: a /usr/bin/perl script text
> ./bin/which: a /usr/bin/perl script text
> ./sbin/adduser: a /usr/bin/perl script text
> ./sbin/kbdmap: a /usr/bin/perl script text
> ./sbin/vidfont: a /usr/bin/perl script text
> ./sbin/spkrtest: a /usr/bin/perl script text
> 
> Not much.  Eliminate it, and that reduces the installed base OS size
> by 4MB, meaning more installations, more market share, better
> differentiation from bloated commercial systems.
Huh?  If 4 megs made that BIG of a difference, we would have taken over
a LONG time ago.

> 
> If I write C versions of these scripts, will that suffice
> to break perl off into a package?
Not really, not unless you will also re-write ALL future scripts also.
I'm in the process of a total rewrite for adduser to expand it into
a sysadmin system (add user, delete user, groups, change user attributes, etc).
This will be a curses based system.

> 
> //alk
> 

Gary

P.S. Sorry for the slight flamage, but I still belive we need perl.

-- 
Gary Clark II   (N5VMF) |    I speak only for myself and "maybe" my company 
gclarkii@GBData.COM     |          Member of the FreeBSD Doc Team 
  Providing Internet and ISP startups mail info@GBData.COM for information
   FreeBSD FAQ at ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/docs/freebsd-faq.ascii