Re: Perl version in 10.8, and 10.9?
Re: Perl version in 10.8, and 10.9?
- Subject: Re: Perl version in 10.8, and 10.9?
- From: Mark Fowler <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2012 17:41:45 -0400
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Sadly I'm not sure if binary compatibility between major point releases in is realistically feasible since it's my understanding that it's often these binary incompatible bits that make the difference between the Perl versions possible.
So, some follow up points:
1. The yearly release cycle
Perl is now on a yearly release cycle, where each year a new stable Perl is released rendering last year's stable release to 'deprecated but still supported' and the year before that to 'no longer supported'.
It seems that (if current trends hold at least) OS X is currently *also* on a yearly release cycle. Ideally it would be nice to take a new Perl version every year to stay current. It's worth noting that there are distinct advantages in this:
i) If a developer skips a Perl release (e.g. from 5.12 to 5.16) when they upgrade their perl then deprecation warnings from the skipped release are not seen and features simple seem to vanish from the language
ii) Since the releases are not synchronised with OS X releases then if OS X continues on it's yearly release cycle then unless a new version of Perl is taken every year at some point in every two years OS X will be running an old no-longer supported by the Perl community perl.
However: I can understand your concerns with having to maintain a ever increasing number of Perl binaries in the distribution if you want to continue to ship a binary compatible perl!
Regrettably I do not have a solution to offer. What would be really useful is unequivocal feedback to the Perl community about the problems that the current yearly release presents to Apple as a distributer of Perl so Apple's needs can be considered.
2. Removing old Perls
It would be a lot simpler if Apple were easily able to remove old Perl versions. When you say that they're specifically referenced by applications how do you mean? Do you mean that your problem is that the Perl binary has been included into applications? Do you mean that the path to the particular version of Perl is hard coded in applications? Do you mean that you're worried about changes in behaviour?
In the past Apple have removed older versions of Perl (for example, Snow Leopard used to ship with 5.8 but this was removed in Lion.) I assume that this was possible due to applications no longer needing those older versions (something to do with the 32bit to 64bit switchover?)
Again, it would be tremendously useful for the Perl community to understand what make it "okay" and what would make it "not okay" for Apple to be able to remove old versions of Perl.
Thanks again for replying to my original email, and if any of the questions I've asked for any reasons is not something that can be publicly discussed then please say so and I'll stop bothering you ;-)
--
Mark Fowler
http://www.twoshortplanks.com/
On Tuesday, 31 July 2012 at 16:18, Kevin Van Vechten wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> The biggest way the Perl community could help would be to make a strong commitment to preserving binary compatibility for modules between releases.
>
> As it stands, once a major version of Perl is shipped with OS X it cannot be removed because it is specifically referenced by applications. That means that the Perl's support footprint (and percentage of the overall OS X download size) increases with each release.
>
> Although 5.14 was available in time to include with Mountain Lion, doing so wasn't very appealing given that it would be so quickly obsoleted by 5.16 and we'd end up having to maintain 5.10, 5.12, 5.14 and 5.16. Unfortunately 5.16 wasn't released at a time that allowed for inclusion in Mountain Lion, so both were skipped.
>
> Kevin
>
>
> On Jul 30, 2012, at 2:17 PM, Mark Fowler <email@hidden (mailto:email@hidden)> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I just installed 10.8 on my Mac and I note that it's still shipping with no-longer supported versions of Perl (5.10 and 5.12, current latest stable is 5.16.)
> >
> > I wondered if there was any way the Perl community could help get the latest version of Perl in OS X 10.9. I suspect there's very good reasons why Apple didn't upgrade Perl in 10.8, and if nothing else it would be useful for the Perl community to know these reasons to inform decisions regarding its own release schedule.
> >
> > So, is there anyone on this list who either themselves or who knows someone who is involved in the packaging of Perl for OS X? Is there any way that the Perl community could further contribute to this process (either directly, or by making changes to the release timings, etc.)
> >
> > Mark.
> > http://www.pimpyourmacwithperl.com/
>
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Darwin-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden