Remove p5.8 and p5.10

[Jeffrey Johnson]

On Aug 14, 2014, at 12:45 PM, Frank Schima wrote:

> 
> On Aug 14, 2014, at 9:45 AM, Ryan Schmidt <ryandesign at macports.org> wrote:
> 
>> If we aren't quite ready to tackle "one perl" yet, we could still improve the situation slightly by removing all p5.8 and p5.10 modules. We wouldn't have to bother fixing some perl 5.8- and 5.10-specific issues, and it would be fewer subports for maintainers to test and for buildslaves to build.
>> 
>> Check my work, but it looks like there aren't any ports that depend on p5.8 or p5.10 versions of modules (other than other p5.8 and p5.10 modules of course):
>> 
>> $ port echo depends:p5.8 and not name:^p5.8
>> $ port echo depends:p5.10 and not name:^p5.10
>> $
>> 
>> The question is how should we go about that. It would be straightforward to just remove 5.8 and 5.10 everywhere it is found in a perl5.branches line, but if any users still have those old modules installed, they would never receive notification that they should upgrade to newer perl versions to continue to receive updates. This is the de facto solution we are using for python modules as well. It might be cleaner to use the replaced_by mechanism to replace these older modules with newer counterparts, but that would be more work. Thoughts on whether that's necessary?
>> 
>> 
>> Later we could remove perl5.8 and perl5.10, though at present some ports still depend on them:
>> 
>> $ port echo depends:perl5.8 and not name:^p5.8
>> subversion-perlbindings-5.8     
>> rpm                             
>> rpm45                           
>> rpm50                           
>> rpm51                           
>> rpm52                           
>> rpm53                           
>> $ port echo depends:perl5.10 and not name:^p5.10
>> subversion-perlbindings-5.10    
>> $
> 
> I totally agree that we should remove perl 5.8 and 5.10 as soon as reasonably possible. 
> 
> The rpm53 port already has a perl5_12 variant that can be used. These ports appear very out of date and I doubt anyone uses them. rpm53 also depends on python25! I believe all the RPM ports below rpm53 should be removed. We could ping the maintainers (CC’ed to this email). 
> 
> Anders, n3npq: Any thoughts on this?
> 

Sure: rpm45 is ancient, rpm53 is in "production" use
use several years now (on linux, and under CI on my Mac's),
rpm54 is up to rpm-5.4.15. The rpm51 port has been out
for years, quite portable and stable. Dunno what value there is
in having multiple versions.

Get rid of the old "stuff" and consolidate imho. That is a political issue
that neither Anders nor I can meaningfully solve.

(aside to Brandon Allbery)
The right fix is to repair the perl script that "ghc -fvia-C" needs
and flush the ancient perl5.8 and perl5.10 hysteria. JMHO, YMMV.

Anders has been doing all the macports (and *bsd) maintenance so its largely his
call what (or if) he chooses to maintain with rpm. I've largely stayed out of the
decision making processes because (as a developer) I'm more
interested in deploying "features"

But I do get copied on rpm bug reports, just I'm not sure how to re-re-re-respond
to flaws that reappear years later where
	Upgrade to the version where the fix exists.
isn't and adequate answer.

Meanwhile there just aren't the many issues nor interest in MacPorts rpm*.
C'est la vie.

73 de Jeff





The issue 
> 
> Cheers!
> Frank
>