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Postings from June 2006
> What some people consider critical core functionality is considered > unnecessary bloat by others. OK, let me clarify what I've been referring to as critical core functionality. 1. You start with the Perl source code 2. Many and varied things, some of which will have been done for you before by the time you install Perl. 3. You have installed and actively use every module on CPAN (contrived I know). Personally, I consider a critical dependency to be anything which breaks 2 and prevents me getting from 1 to 3. This list currently includes gzip, tar, ftp, and all the modules in the core. There might be optional ways, but there should be A way. For the current codebase you can get from 1 to 3 on all the unix platforms and all other platforms I believe, but you cannot get from 1 to 3 on Win32 platforms. In order to fix this situation, the ONLY module that needs to be added to the core is Win32API::File. Hence I consider Win32API::File a critical core dependency. Without it, much as if we removed several other modules, the sequence from source to CPAN is broken. So "critical" in the sense of "dead without it", even if I don't ever use it in my own code. Adam K