FreeBSD: Perl to be removed

zmcgrew writes "From Daemon News:
"The decision was made to remove Perl from the FreeBSD -current base system [earlier story ]. Perl will be supported as a port that the user can install after the base installation, however it will no longer be required. Mark Murray put out a call to the -current mailing list asking for volunteers to port all Perl scripts in the base system to another language, such as sh or C. All critical programs are already being ported, with only a few minor ones left to be claimed." Wow..."

Comments

Re:The obvious question remains

[cfreeze]

Perl's not a base requirement in most Linux distributions or other commercial Unix implementations. I would say it's a smart move for the FreeBSD team.

Reasons why

[Chinese Karma Whore]

1. As a perl user all i can say perl removal will be for the better. It will reduce the freebsd install size and will be easier to update perl ... w/o the need of symlinks & other cruft.

2. When Perl is integrated into the base system, users can either eat what they're given, or
jump through hoops to install a separate version and keep it separate. This change will
vastly improve and simplify supporting Perl on FreeBSD.

Re:The obvious question remains

[josepha48]

Is is not in most standard unix installations. If you get HP, Sun, or Linux perl is a seperate package. Linux usually installs it on the system as part of the development packages, but it is a seperate package and you can set up a Linux box without it. Sun is the same way, as is HP and AIX.

I can't remember if I had to install perl for NetBSD, I thought I did, but it may be just the added packages. I know on one NetBSD box I have it has perl installed as a package. I think FreeBSD is doing the right thing. I mean it is not that hard to do 'make install' in the ports to install perl.

OpenBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

so when is perl going to ripped out of the default OpenBSD install?

Re:Some choice

[sigwinch]

Let's all install two different versions of perl on our boxes. One for the system, and one for the user. I've dealt with this hell on HP-UX 10.20 (which ships with perl 4) and I don't like it much.

Maybe I didn't make that clear: the two Perls should be *completely* separate. /usr/bin/system-perl should come from its own dedicated package, a package that the core maintainers guarantee does not conflict with anything else. It should not be a standard package that has been kluged to install in an odd location. You should be able to upgrade user Perl with absolute confidence that system Perl will not break, and vice versa. The only thing they should share is a name and a syntax.

I applaud FreeBSD for finally starting to do what NetBSD has done since the beginning: Install a base OS and let the user decide what else they want or need.

But they haven't! They are ramming C and sh down the average sysadmin's throat, without the slightest thought about what is appropriate for that sysadmin.

In the real world, most sysadmin labor hours are spent on servers and workstations running powerful, modern hardware. And what they need are transparent, diagnosable systems. When things go wrong, or when they have a complex task to accomplish on a short schedule, they need to be able to reach inside the system and extend it. Hard coding system logic into C programs is extremely counterproductive, and sh is so limited and restrictive that you have to jump through all sorts of ridiculous hoops to accomplish the simplest tasks. What is needed is a good, full-featured scripting language that the average sysadmin can master quickly. If I was paying to have my dream OS written, it would be Python, but Perl is good enough.