use Perl

• Diversity is the new Uniformity (Score:2)

  by brian_d_foy (44)

  Actually, I don't think you get it :)
  
  You're not diversifying. You're un-difersivify. ActiveState was diversity. It was a different source for Perl and for modules. Now you've made Perl come from the same source everyone else uses and download modules from the same source that everyone else uses.
  
  I think it's that diversity which hurt Perl for a long time on Windows. Instead of having Srawberry Perl ten years ago, we let ActiveState have that domain. With ActiveState, no one had any incentive to work that har
  • Re: (Score:1)

    by chromatic (983)

    To be fair, it was a huge advantage that there were people interested in Perl who knew how to write code for Windows and actually did.

    I've abandoned a few projects because I couldn't get them to run on Windows and was sick of Windows users complaining but never actually trying to help fix things.
    • Re:Diversity is the new Uniformity (Score:1)

      by Alias (5735) on 2008.05.06 22:17 (#62669) Homepage Journal

      I'll note that the "people interested in Perl who knew how to write code for Windows and actually did" group doesn't really include me.
      
      I am interesting, and I prefer to "actually do", but really I don't know how to write code for Windows.
      
      I muddle through in a couple of areas (like File::HomeDir) but mostly I just bug OTHER people to make their stuff work on Win32. I mean, I didn't create the original Vanilla MinGW setup, I didn't create the original .exe builder, and I didn't do much of the toolchain porting.
      
      All I did was 1) Blatantly copy things from other people 2) Make sure things got built collaboratively 3) Helped with a few communities (IRC, win32.perl.org)
      
      But most importantly, I think the key insight was that if CPAN worked out the box, it would massively shorten the feedback loop. And that feedback loop is everything.
      
      I truly believe just about anyone can work in unfamiliar territory if the response time between them making a mistake, and getting told it is a mistake, is quick enough.
      
      That's really the key to Strawberry. Just making it easier to work on creates this huge iterative cascade of development and improvement on that platform.
      
      The the beauty for me is that, once set up, I do almost none of the work, and still get a ton of the credit :)

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      • Re: (Score:1)

        by chromatic (983)

        The the beauty for me is that, once set up, I do almost none of the work, and still get a ton of the credit :)

        What I am saying is that -- without taking credit from anyone working on Vanilla, Strawberry, or Chocolate Perl -- ActiveState still deserves tremendous credit for making it possible to run the same code on Windows as Unix and Unix-like systems.

        I'll push toward the front of the line for criticizing ActiveState's technical decision to push backwards compatibility and kill all hopes of getting m
        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Alias (5735)

          On this point, I agree completely.
          
          They deserve a lot of kudos for the port, but in the last 5 years they've failed to live up to their previous standards in my opinion.