portupgrade to Perl 5.10.0 ??

[David Southwell]

On Saturday 12 July 2008 03:05:39 David Southwell wrote:
> On Saturday 12 July 2008 02:26:55 Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
> > On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 02:29:06AM -0700, David Southwell wrote:
> > > Here is a full and verbatim copy of my original posting that started
> > > this thread.
> > > _________________________________________________________________
> > > Subject: portupgrade to Perl 5.10.0 ??
> > >  From: David Southwell <david at vizion2000.net>
> > >  To: freebsd-ports at freebsd.org
> > >
> > > Hi
> > >
> > > Just wondered when an upgrade to 5.10.0 could be expected.
> > >
> > > David
> > > ___________________________________________
> > >
> > > Are you seriously telling me you "understand" something "between the
> > > lines" in that?
> > >
> > > Come on -- smile a little...and I hope you will find a more
> > > constructive & creative use for magination than that!!!
> > >
> > > I do not think it is unreasonable to say the original posting was
> > > straight forward and certainly cast no aspersions. The same thing
> > > cannot be said of some responses.
> >
> > You simply want to know if the perl port being upgraded to 5.10 is in
> > the works, and if there's any idea of when it will be completed.  I
> > think this is a reasonable request, open-source project or otherwise.
> >
> > > I wonder whether someone could endeavour to answer the original
> > > question constructively rather than defensively.
> >
> > I'm not responsible for the perl port, so I can't speak for tobez at .
> >
> > If you're a generic developer who uses perl, and 5.10 offers you fixes
> > or features you need, I can see how you might think the upgrade is
> > simple.  But I can tell you that upgrading perl is one of those
> > "sensitive" things from a system administrator's perspective.
> >
> > The thing with perl is that the language has a history of minor
> > revisions inducing "customer chaos" -- that is to say, you upgrade from
> > 5.4 to 5.8 and suddenly you have a bunch of users filling your mailbox
> > with "My script doesn't work any more!!! What did you do?" and "Why
> > exactly did you upgrade to 5.8?  The memory footprint is larger, and
> > it's breaking on this third-party module I use, please revert..."
> > Believe me, this actually happens, and I have witnessed it on multiple
> > occasions at past jobs.
> >
> > Let's not forget that perl is a very large piece of the ports tree.
> > There are 3150 ports that start with "p5-".  What guarantee is there
> > that every one works with 5.10?  Sure, it's a matter of trial and error
> > and waiting for users to submit PRs informing maintainers which piece
> > doesn't work with 5.10, but that takes time -- time that one FreeBSD
> > user may have, but another does not.
> >
> > Then there's the whole dependency thing.  perl in recent days has been
> > adding more and more modules to the base perl distribution; what used to
> > be an add-on module is now included with perl, so ports have to be
> > updated to be aware of that fact.
> >
> > When such a commit (e.g. 5.8 --> 5.10) hits the tree, users and ports
> > maintainers will have to race to see what works and what doesn't.
> >
> > I'm not trying to justify what other people have told you, but you need
> > to keep in mind that changes to the perl port can have dire
> > repercussions -- treading lightly is an absolute necessity.
> >
> > Does this inadvertently answer your questions?  :-)
>
> Not really.
>
> The information you give is valuable and will be helpful to those who do
> not understand the complications.
>
> However you are not telling me anything I do not know <chuckles>- which was
> why my original posting was phrased in a respectful and unloaded way. (My
> first contact with Perl was during its early development stages so its
> history is familiar to me.)
>
> I would have expected a reply that indicated progess and a genuine and
> helpful attempt to indicate a best/worst scenario for an upgrade.
>
> I certainly do not expect to get of topic responses that cast aspersions,
> including accusations of making demands or other replies that seem to be 
> so overly defensive that one wonders what emotions are driving the
> contributors.
>
> Thanks for wading in
>
> David
>
>
>
I have now had a really helpful reply to a private email I sent to tobez. He 
has given me permission to post it here;

>From: Anton Berezin <tobez at freebsd.org>
>To: David Southwell <david at vizion2000.net>
 
>>On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 10:29:18AM -0700, David Southwell wrote:
>> On Saturday 12 July 2008 09:58:06 you wrote:
> > David,
> >
> > On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 02:52:55AM -0700, David Southwell wrote:
> > > I do not know whether you are still responsible for maintaining perl but
> > > I thought it was appropriate to forward a copy of this to you. A few
> > > people are showing signs of being a bit hot under the collar because a
> > > question has been asked about Perl5.10.0. The thread has become a bit
> > > fractious  and thought you might be in a position to cool it.
> >
> > I was postponing making the port first because of our extended freeze, and
> > after that for the (rather chronic) lack of time.  The basic port is ready
> > for quite a while, but I've been meaning to integrate quite a bit of
> > patches I've got from people over time.  Some of it is done, some of it is
> > not there quite yet.  My estimation is that I need an uninterrupted half a
> > day to a day of time to finish the port so that it is usable and 
reasonably
> > bug-free. I've been going to do that "Real Soon Now" for more time than I
> > myself is comfortable with.
> >
> > Anyways, I am leaving for a one-week vacation tomorrow, so nothing is 
going
> > to happen during this time.  After that I'll seriously try not to postpone
> > it any longer.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > \Anton.
> 
> Thanks anton for getting back to me.
> 
> To cool things down abit would you mind if I copied your reply to the list? 
Sure, if you think it's needed.

 


So now we know what is happening.. thank you tobez.

David