Re: [HEADS UP] perl symlinks in /usr/bin will be gone

From: Andrew McNaughton (andrew_at_scoop.co.nz)
Date: 01/30/05

  • Next message: Andrew McNaughton: "Re: [HEADS UP] perl symlinks in /usr/bin will be gone" 
    Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 16:18:24 +1300 (NZDT)
To: Matthias Andree <matthias.andree@gmx.de>

    On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Matthias Andree wrote:

    > Oliver Lehmann <lehmann@ans-netz.de> writes:
    >
    >> Anton Berezin wrote:
    >>
    >>> In practical terms this will mean a one-time sweep of your scripts in
    >>> order to convert them, in a typical case, from #! /usr/bin/perl to
    >>> #! /usr/local/bin/perl.
    >>
    >> Wouldn't that break most of the 3rd party scripts out in the world?
    >
    > Hardcoded paths in scripts are a mess. What if I installed Perl into
    > /opt/mumble on some other machine? /usr/freeware? /what/ever? Changed
    > $PREFIX and/or $LOCALBASE?
    >
    > I'd say let the ports patch the right location at install time and if
    > they break after upgrading both perl and the port, they deserve no better.

    Ports covers only a *very* small proportion of the perl scripts in use out
    there. There are for instance no end of CGI scripts and system automation
    scripts out there that are produced for in house use. Imagine what will
    be a fairly typical case: Some website owner who hired a programmer in
    the past to set stuff up suddenly finds their site is broken. They'll
    probably call their hosting provider first. The hosting provider might
    require all their affected customers to find someone who understands
    enough to fix this - which would add up to millions of dollars of
    expenditure worldwide if everyone took that approach. More likely, most
    hosting providers would put back in the symlinks that it is proposed to
    remove. They'll then have a 'non-standard' modification to maintain on
    their own systems, and this will probably be standard practice, not
    modifying all the scripts people want to put in. Seems like a lot of
    people wasting effort to me.

    Andrew McNaughton 

    --
The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of
torture and we are leading this fight by example."
   - George Bush, 26 June 2003
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew McNaughton           http://www.scoop.co.nz/
andrew@scoop.co.nz          Mobile: +61 422 753 792
_______________________________________________
freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
  • Next message: Andrew McNaughton: "Re: [HEADS UP] perl symlinks in /usr/bin will be gone"

    Relevant Pages

    • Re: GUI and Rapid Application Development?
      ... Most simple applications that I dealt with did not need the use of API ... I imagine Perl is faster, ... my Perl scripts are more compact ... Chirag> in Windows that could run on Windows 98 through 2003. ...
      (comp.os.linux.misc)
    • Save to upgrade Perl?
      ... I have a production server that handles five domains for my employer. ... I've used ports very often, and I frequently 'cvsup ports-supfile && ... I tried to install a perl module ... much a no brainer that the vast majority of scripts will be compatible ...
      (comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc)
    • RE: Fork - Process ID
      ... > Subject: Fork - Process ID ... > I have many cron jobs that run perl scripts. ... # standard-out with random messages. ...
      (perl.beginners)
    • Re: Learning perl when in the frying pan...
      ... > Programming Perl 3rd edition) and a few other perl books), ... the first thing will be to read Programming Perl again. ... I work on Perl & Mod Perl scripts on a ecommerce system critical server. ...
      (comp.lang.perl.misc)
    • Re: Calling R from Ruby
      ... level of integration that you wanted to achieve between R and Ruby this ... I usually call R scripts from Perl via ... passing parameters as environment variables -- Perl exports them and R ...
      (comp.lang.ruby)