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MacPerl 5.6.1 Released
pudge (apple.slashdot.org editor and MacPerl Maintainer) writes "MacPerl 5.6.1r1 is the first release of MacPerl in four years. It is now based on perl 5.6.1 -- actually on the latest unreleased 5.6 sources, so MacPerl is the most advanced release of perl ever -- and support for MacPerl is now in the perl core, for both 5.6 and 5.8. MacPerl can also be built entirely with freely available software. And, like its predecessor, it runs on Mac OS X under the Classic environment. Read the announcement, and see macperldelta for details on what's changed."
Perl has claimed to be platform agnostic, but has been heavily unix (and x86) centric. It's good to see opportunities to use Perl on other platforms, as it is a very useful language.
It is now based on perl 5.6.1 -- actually on the latest unreleased 5.6 sources, so MacPerl is the most advanced release of perl ever
"Most advanced" is often the antithesis of "most stable". I'd be a little leery about using it until it's been hammered on a bit.
"Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence." -T.S. Eliot
Because Mac OS X perl doesn't (yet) have hooks into the Mac OS API.
Highlights In MacPerl 5.6.1 shows updates include:
MacPerl drove me nuts under the old MacOS. I had to do some perl development and I needed to use some database modules that were unstable ondr MacOS. I tried to use them under Windows using ActiveState, but there the modules were just not available. I ended up HAVING to learn to use Linux (and install) in order to get my work done.
Since OS X has perl, I do my perl development on my Mac again. It's good to see MacPerl being developed, but its usefulness has diminished -- the target audience uses an operating system that is being phased out.
t'nera semordnilap
it's ok for Classic (OS 9) i guess. under OS X you can just use the regular Perl sources... in fact /usr/bin/perl is preinstalled.
:)
one might say that with the advent of OS 9, *MacPerl is dying
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
I use MacPerl to develop the very site you're posting on ... does that count? :)
;-)
Sure, you can't fork, but that's rarely needed. I do command-line stuff with MacPerl (both via ToolServer in BBEdit and in MPW) often. And I use Mac::Glue to do whatever I might want to do in AppleScript, without AppleScript's performance penalties or horrific syntax.
For example, I have here a little script where MacPerl on my Mac OS box talks to my Mac OS X box and asks iTunes on Mac OS X what track is currently playing, and then it drops that information into my clipboard.
NP: It's Alright For You - The Police (Message In A Box - Disc 1)
Because, as noted above, perl doesn't have access to the Mac OS API under Mac OS X yet. This will change, hopefully, but for now, if you want to run your old scripts that call Mac::Windows, Mac::Events, etc., then you need MacPerl, even under Mac OS X. I hope that before the end of the year, there will be no reason to run MacPerl under Mac OS X.
Perl 5.6 is included with OS X. You can run scripts from the terminal. Go here for more info from the apple website
MacPerl is not an Apple product. Also, I believe your definition of "vaporware" is incorrect:
Vaporware is software or hardware that is either (1) announced or mentioned publicly in order to influence customers to defer
buying competitors' products or (2) late being delivered for whatever reason. Most computer companies have from time to time
delivered vaporware, either by calculation or unintentionally.
t'nera semordnilap
Well, on OS X you are better off using the perl built-in to OS X. I think the part in the story referring to running in classic was basically to say that MacPerl is still an answer for those using OS 9 or earlier.
From my OS X box:
[chrisl:~] lindemer% perl --version
This is perl, v5.6.0 built for darwin
Now, if you're running a process in MacPerl on OS X...you will probably have to deal with timeouts the first run or two. Classic takes a minute or so to launch, and that time can be much more (or less) depending on your hardware and how stripped-down your OS 9 environment is.
± 29 dB
If you need to use MacPerl, well, Classic can take a long time to load, depending on your system. Anywhere from under a minute to several minutes. Once running, the script can run in less than a second, or a few seconds, depending on your system. Classic is a memory pig, but its performance is mostly the same as running Mac OS 9 by itself.
Apple currently has people working on porting Tk to Aqua (based on Tcl first, which ships default with OS X). Once that is done, whichever languages hook into Tk through Tcl will get native Aqua L&F (i.e. Python, Ruby). Perl still uses a modified Tk 8.0 (pre-unicode days), so I don't know what effort it would take to update Perl/Tk to a modern Tk. I've heard from Nick Ing-Simmons about the possibility a while ago, but he's gone quiet in the interim...
BTW, Tk does work on OS X natively now, just via X.
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
<plug>This is great news for Ethernet MP3 player
The open development team behind the SliMP3 has created one of largest Perl programs in history. We've always ensured that the software is easy to install, and supports as many platforms as possible. That means we have to do certain things like avoiding fork(), and making sure that the Time::HiRes module is available with the distribution, pre-compiled for many architectures. We also deal with the path name differences between Windows and Unix. Those are the main differences - there are about a half dozen other little things, but all in all Perl is a great language and runs well on all platforms.
Version 1.0 of our software *was* compatible with MacOS9. We dropped support for OS9 after that, due to the numerous limitations and problems with the outdated MacPerl. OSX has never been a problem, because it's just Unix and it comes with Perl 5.6.1.
However, now that MacPerl 5.6.1 is available, there is a good chance that we'll be able to get the product working on MacOS Classic again. I am starting work on it today!
Hooray for the MacPerl team!
It is now based on perl 5.6.1 -- actually on the latest unreleased 5.6 sources, so MacPerl is the most advanced release of perl ever
Surely you mean this is the most advanced release of perl ever for the Mac, as the developer's release is at 5.7.3.