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Re: Perl 5.005 in potato



On Sun, May 09, 1999 at 08:14:24PM -0700, Jim Lynch wrote:
> Mike Stone said:
> > Perl is just another app.
> 
> For most distributions, this is true. Proof: you can run those dists without
> perl.
> 
> For debian, however, Mike's statement is not valid. Proof: try to release
> debian without perl in any form. You're gonna find that perl happens to have
> been made essential to debian, not due to any intrinsic quality, but because
> some developers have chosen to use perl and perl scripts in maintainer scripts.
> 
> This means that upgrading perl (whenever it is done) will need the same degree
> of care applied as for dpkg, dselect, boot-floppies, debian-cd and all other
> essential parts of debian infrastructure, and -not- that of "just another app".

You forget to mention some important points -- those new features in perl
5.005 are both underdeveloped and buggy. In the same way, debian does not
depend on them at all....
	However I agree they are useful. But, getting them into potato
should carry the same importance as some popular python module...

-- 
..Aaron Van Couwenberghe... ..vanco@sonic.net.. ..aaronv@debian.org....
	Berlin:			http://www.berlin-consortium.org
	Debian GNU/Linux:	http://www.debian.org

"...Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing..."
	-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


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