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Re: Perl 5.10.1
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From:
David Golden
Date:
June 24, 2009 02:49
Subject:
Re: Perl 5.10.1
Message ID:
5d4beb40906240248w67ce33d2lf25fd98b4dea6eb7@mail.gmail.com
On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 1:08 AM, David E. Wheeler<david@kineticode.com> wrote:
> On Jun 23, 2009, at 8:39 PM, David Golden wrote:
>
>> So in my opinion, we need a way for people to publicize useful
>> branches they maintain and we need an easy way for an admin of average
>> skill to easily build and install a perl from an arbitrary git branch.
>
> This may well fracture Perl. I'm already looking to go with Perl5i when
> Schwern & Co. decide to "release." Do you want more of those?
It may. But that's part of a broader debate about speed of evolution
versus stability.
I'm talking about something much narrower. Rafael suggested a library
of "important" patches for those who need them. I'm taking that one
step further and saying it doesn't have to be patches -- it can be
full-fledged, ready to compile source trees.
Moreover, it can happen entirely to the side of p5p. This is a good
thing for those who want a fix that isn't blessed/sanctioned.
My example of getting ancient perls to build on my system is an
example. If I want to be able to test my distros against every major
perl release, I don't want to have to patch every single one of them
to get it to build. p5p didn't like my idea of adding "maint-5.X.Y"
branches to backport build-fixes for "perl-5.X.Y" branches. I forget
why -- probably something about not implying that anyone is supporting
those older releases or something. Ok, fine. I don't really care to
waste my time on that argument and I don't need to because I don't
need it to be in the official repo -- it's in mine.
So I've done the work already. How can the next person who wants to
build 5.6.2 for whatever reason benefit? Get pointed to my repo, pull
the right branch and build. Easier than trolling through a directory
of patches, finding the right one, applying it, etc. And if someone
thinks they can do a better 5.6.2 than I can, they can easily publish
their own branch.
Git democratizes Perl.
In my book, that's a good thing. Even for p5p, it may be good in that
minor issues off the main line of development can be fixed and
available by others.
-- David
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