Perl 5.8.8 already present on Leopard; can I make a "dummy" Portfile?

[Daniel J. Luke]

On Dec 29, 2008, at 1:45 AM, nicerobot wrote:
> I fully understand the design decision. My point is that the  
> decision is
> flawed because it's too inflexible.

It's basically impossible to ensure a working macports system while  
relying on software not installed by macports.

> Macports should be more versatile with
> respect to perl because perl modules aren't generally treated the  
> same as
> binary libraries (i.e. the FAQ link you referenced isn't completely
> applicable to perl modules).

Many perl modules compile libraries that are used (and aren't just  
pure perl).

> It's completely acceptable and understandable
> for macports to provide it's own version(s) of perl and even to  
> require a
> set of modules. There's just absolutely no reason whatsoever that  
> macport's
> version of perl can't, for those that decide to do so, share/combine  
> the
> @INC with the OS's perl's @INC, especially when the two builds of  
> perl are
> identical versions.

If you really wanted to, you could hack the portfile (or the macports  
perl install) to have @INC behave the way you want. It's just probably  
not something that is going to be set by default.

> To deny this request essentially forces users that have a significant
> investment in the OS's perl to either spend the time getting  
> macports into
> the same state and switching to macports' perl or having to decide  
> which
> perl to use for certain situations and not be able to just rely on the
> $PATH. Either way, it's not a user-friendly approach.

It's even less user-friendly to break seemingly randomly (what, I  
installed some broken module foo in my system perl and now all of the  
macports I installed that depend on perl are broken?)

If the perl-requiring software you use is in MacPorts, MacPorts will  
install all of the modules you need for it when you're installing it  
(so it can be fairly trivial to get MacPorts perl set up).

In any event... MacPorts is all run by volunteers, so if you have time  
to help make things better, we're happy to have your contributions.
--
Daniel J. Luke
+========================================================+
| *---------------- dluke at geeklair.net ----------------* |
| *-------------- http://www.geeklair.net -------------* |
+========================================================+
|   Opinions expressed are mine and do not necessarily   |
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