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Postings from November 2007
Nicholas Clark wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 21, 2007 at 08:21:59AM -0600, Brandon Black wrote:
>> So long as VMS support in Perl is basically "free", in that there's a
>> VMS community who's actively able to maintain it and keep it from
>> burdening core development, I don't see a problem. But developer hours
>> are a finite and valuable resource, and I'd rather not see any wasted on
>> VMS. Ditto for IBM EBCDIC platforms.
>
>> They represent very tiny subsets of the community, they're overpriced
>> proprietary platforms supposedly supported by giant companies, and if
>> their customers want Perl IMHO it's their [IBM or HP's] job to get it
>> running.
I threw in the "VMS is not dead" stuff because the reaction to most folks
about VMS is "does anybody use that anymore?" Apparently we need to have that
conversation again.
Do we drop Redhat [1] because Redhat is a big company that doesn't give us
much support? Do we drop Windows [2] because Microsoft doesn't give us much
support, and it's commercial and overpriced?
Whether or not VMS is actually viable choice in the future, or whether it's
free, or whatever one might think of the technical and economical merits of
their operating system, there is a known and very active set of VMS users
within Perl patching for VMS. John Malmberg and Craig Berry and Peter Prymmer
and all the other regulars on vmsperl have done a fantastic job maintaining
support. And that's good enough for me.
The fact is, when I have to patch perl on VMS I can get a free login from HP
testdrive and find good, steady VMS help on vmsperl. This is more than I can
say about most other niche operating systems. Hell, it's more than I can say
about Windows.
Long ago, MakeMaker dropped Amiga support because we couldn't get anyone who
actually used an Amiga, it was being held on life support by folks with
emulators and such who didn't actually make real use of an Amiga. If a pile
of Amiga enthusiasts popped up tomorrow and started throwing decent patches
around, I'd start supporting them.
To go back to the original 5.5 / Windows 95 analogy, neither has a known,
active community within Perl. 5.5 was being held on life support by folks who
thought we should support 5.5, myself included. That life support has been
pulled. Now we'll find out whether there's any real signs of life.
> Not only do HP make test machines available to all with VMS on, but the
> staff on Testdrive are incredibly helpful.
>
> IBM don't even offer a test system.
(I believe that's properly "don't even offer no test system")
Neither does Microsoft, to go back to the Windows 95 analogy.
[1] Oh god please can we?
[2] Ditto
--
Life is like a sewer - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.
- Tom Lehrer
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