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The decision was made to remove Perl from the FreeBSD -current base system [earlier story]. Perl will be supported as a port that the user can install after the base installation, however it will no longer be required.
Mark Murray put out a call to the -current mailing list asking for volunteers to port all Perl scripts in the base system to another language, such as sh or C. All critical programs are already being ported, with only a few minor ones left to be claimed.
From: Mark Murray
To: current AT FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Resolution (Was: Re: The future of perl on FreeBSD)
Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 10:31:42 +0100
Hello all
Thanks to all participants in this thread, the way ahead is now
abundantly clear. :-)
There were three options, listed below and trimmed:
> 1) leave perl in the base OS and deal with the library bloat.
> 2) split perl down to base language/interpreter for OS use, and
> make the libraries a port.
> 3) Ditch perl from the base system completely, and rely on the
> ports system for FreeBSD's perl requirements.
Option 1 got extremely limited support.
Option 2 got some support (and for the record it was my choice).
Option 3 got pretty overwhelming support.
So it looks like FreeBSD gets to ditch perl from the OS. I will do this.
There are some issues to deal with.
1) There are some perl scripts in the base OS that need to be either
ditched or rewritten.
2) The exact method of providing perl to the user base needs to be
rounded off. Here are some suggestions for this:
a) Rely entirely on the port and leave it at that.
b) Install the port at install time in a similar way to the
way we currently install XFree86.
c) Install a wrapper in /usr/bin/perl that runs the real
perl from whereever it is.
3) Fix the ports system such that USE_PERL makes an appropriate
dependancy on the perl port, and does not assume perl in the
base OS.
4) Fix ports that do things like "perl -spi -e '' "
to use whatever comes out of the current "sed -[Ii]" discussion
instead.
Any _strong_ feelings on any of these? Any volunteers?
M
--
o Mark Murray
_
O._ Warning: this .sig is umop ap!sdn
From: Mark Murray
To: current AT FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Perl scripts that need rewiting - Any volunteers?
Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 10:57:00 +0100
Hi
Here is the current list of perl scripts in the base system that
need rewriting.
Volunteers, please? If not, Motions to Nuke :-).
Serious suggestions only! Lets keep the bikeshed down, and the
thread on topic!
It would be acceptable to rewrite in C (C++?) or /bin/sh (/bin/csh?)./usr/bin/afmtodit
/usr/bin/catman Trivial?
/usr/bin/makewhatis Needed for "make world" Important one!
/usr/bin/mmroff
/usr/bin/sockstat IIRC, des already has this one
/usr/bin/whereis
/usr/sbin/adduser Wrapper round "pw useradd"?
/usr/sbin/kbdmap
/usr/sbin/pkg_update Use port instead?
/usr/sbin/pkg_version
/usr/sbin/rmuser Wrapper round "pw userdel"?
/usr/sbin/scriptdump
/usr/sbin/spkrtest Trivial?
/usr/sbin/vidfont
From: Mark Murray
To: current AT FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Perl scripts that need rewriting - Progress!
Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 20:33:22 +0100
Hi
The response to the perl-script rewriting project has been
very hearteningly _fantastic_!
Here is the list as it stands. The gaps are fairly obvious (and
probably mostly not critical in the short term):
/usr/bin/afmtodit
/usr/bin/catman John Rochester [email filtered] - re
/usr/bin/makewhatis John Rochester [email filtered] - re
/usr/bin/mmroff
/usr/bin/sockstat des - re
/usr/bin/whereis sheldonh - re
/usr/sbin/adduser Mike Makonnen [email filtered] - re
/usr/sbin/kbdmap Jonathan Belson [email filtered] - re
/usr/sbin/pkg_update paul - del - done
/usr/sbin/pkg_version Jeremy Lea [email filtered] - re
/usr/sbin/rmuser Mike Makonnen [email filtered] - re
/usr/sbin/scriptdump
/usr/sbin/spkrtest Riccardo Torrini [email filtered] - re - ready
/usr/sbin/vidfont Jonathan Belson [email filtered] - re
Key - "re" == to be rewritten
"del" == to be deleted
"ready" == work done, just waiting for commit.
"done" == completed
Good call
I must agree with the developers decision, for a group
of good C programmers Perl seems like a pointless addition.
I look forward to more inovative ideas from the *BSD arena.
The army of Freebsd Sysadmins might disagree with you. :)
Writing small, dirty, text processing (i.e. logfile monitors, email utilities) in C is like dating a rabid feminist: painful in the posterior, often broken, usually ugly, and generally not work the work. :)
At least they left the package on the install disc, at least as of 4.9
Removing Perl Seems Silly...
While I realise FreeBSD is NOT Gnu...but is gnu based like many other *Nix's....it seems silly to stray away from perl when so many are using it....straying away means having to rewrite MANY MANY utilities in other languages...that frankly aren't designed around the reason theose utilities were written in perl to begin with: string comparison and manipulation.
I noted that as of 5.1 perl is a port but is installed by default now, unfortunately, because it is a port, many CPAN modules break unless they've been "Ported" as well. GAH!
Nay, actually, according to t
Nay, actually, according to the discussion in this page, they just have to rewrite some scripts. If you later need perl, well, just install it. I am bash-fanatic but I realise it don't need be in the base system.