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Re: OpenSSL alternative support WAS Re: Pre-RFC: support httpsout-of-the-box

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From:
Michiel Beijen
Date:
December 4, 2021 08:07
Subject:
Re: OpenSSL alternative support WAS Re: Pre-RFC: support httpsout-of-the-box
Message ID:
CABD0r10_d1m4i6OR7Wq+k6YD52sovanHPu0Ub_67+V5WpNF9uQ@mail.gmail.com
On Fri, Dec 3, 2021 at 11:05 PM Michiel Beijen <michiel.beijen@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that there is nothing
> for perl itself to improve herel

Let me clarify myself: I think in the current situation, the
installation of CPAN modules using a new Perl is as good as it can be:
it defaults to https using the system curl if no other options are
available.

That said, there _are_ things to improve related to ssl/https support
in Perl in general:

Issuing HTTPS requests is common for any code. There is no core module
that can provide this for you. But then again, Perl was never the
'batteries included' language in the first place!
There is HTTP::Tiny but it has external dependencies for HTTPS.
Installation of IO::Socket::SSL with 'modern' tools will sometimes
fail, will not always very clearly explain the problem (or at least:
to me, and maybe mostly in the past). There is the Alien:: class of
modules which makes it easy to get & install C libraries with your
CPAN client. There is Alien::OpenSSL. Maybe this could be promoted
more widely as a solution for some people?

Alternatively, Python has binary modules called 'wheels' that can be
installed, that include pre-compiled libraries for the most commonly
used platforms, and their package manager pip will prefer using a
wheel if available, in the default configuration. Having such a thing
is great! But that would be a lot of work to achieve.

Please also note that HTTP::Tinyish exists, it's a pure-perl module
used by cpanm to enable HTTPS by falling back to curl or wget if
needed.

--
Michiel

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