Re: Perl 5.6

[Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>]

Darren/Torin/Who Ever... wrote:
> I've uploaded the latest version of Perl to auric.  It still has some
> problems such as:
> 1. It still uses alternatives instead of being the One True Perl.
> 2. It doesn't have a binary-indep target since such would be vastly
>    easier once we have One True Perl.
> 3. None of the bugs listed on the bugs pages are fixed.

4. It is a new upstream version of perl (5.6), which means that every
   binary perl module package will have to be recompiled. That's 72 
   packages in all.

Thought I'd point that out for folks who don't know. Remember the mass
perl module package rebuild when perl 5.005 was put in Debian? Well we
seem to be set up for a similar painful episode here.

And I don't understand why.

I've been using perl 5.6 on my system as the primary perl for a month or
two. No problems with binary perl modules or anything, it just works. It
works because:

a) perl 5.005 to 5.6 is intentionally a binary-compatable upgrade.
   So binary perl modules built for one work for the other. (I've tested
   this both ways; there are packages like libterm-slang-perl that are
   in woody right now that were built under perl 5.6).
b) My perl has:
     Characteristics of this binary (from libperl): 
       Compile-time options: USE_LARGE_FILES
       Built under linux
       Compiled at Oct 11 2000 13:20:29
       @INC:
         /usr/lib/perl5
         /usr/share/perl5
         /usr/local/lib/perl5
         /usr/local/share/perl5
         /usr/lib/perl5/5.005/i386-linux
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
         /usr/lib/perl5/5.005
        .
   The marked line is all that is needed to make perl 5.6 use
   binary modules built for perl 5.005. It works. It avoids a lot of pain.
   Darren's packages do not include that directory in INC though, so they
   cannot use binary modules built with perl 5.005 that drop files there.

Darren, why have you set your perl 5.6 packages up this way? I just don't
understand it.

-- 
see shy jo