On Jun 29, 2008, at 7:07 PM, Mark Dootson wrote:
Can you name any module that will compile on Strawberry Perl via
the CPAN shell that won't compile on ActivePerl via the CPAN shell?
Um, well, any module that requires xs, for starters, since
ActiveState doesn't ship with a C compiler. You'd need to provide
your own, and, since xs modules need to be compiled with the same
compiler used to compile the perl binary, you'll need to provide MS
Visual C++. Apparently, there's some free tools, so you won't need
to shell out beaucoup bucks to do so.
Assuming you've gone the extra step of providing your own C
compiler... I don't know. I'm merely reporting what Adam Kennedy
(the pumpking for Strawberry) told us during his talk at YAPC::NA.
Since I currently need neither ActiveState nor Strawberry for
anything (my employer embeds it's own build of Perl in our product's
Win32 agent and I use various unices at home), I didn't take detailed
notes about which modules either worked on Strawberry and not on
ActiveState or had more recent versions available under Strawberry
than were available in ActiveState's PPM.
However, going through
http://win32.perl.org/wiki/index.php?
title=Vanilla_Perl_Problem_Modules#Resolved_Issues
to find modules that have been fixed under Strawberry and using
http://ppm.activestate.com/BuildStatus/5.8.html
as a list of modules that ActiveState claims don't build under
ActiveState, I was able to cherry pick a few moderately useful modules:
DateTime
DBD::SQLite
Image::ExifTool
Perl::Critic
Spoon
Now, I'm sure there are other, more significant, modules which don't
build. I just did this exercise to show that the Strawberry project
reports being able to build modules that ActiveState reports *not*
being able to build.
Don't get me wrong--ActiveState's Perl is a great thing, and for
years it was the only way for people without Win32 C compilers to use
Perl on Win32. For many people it's still everything they need.
Unfortunately, it's showing its age and it's not getting the kind of
module support other platforms are because xs module authors have to
wait for ActiveState to get around to building their modules and
submitting problem reports. Just look at all the modules marked off
in red on the PPM Repository Build Status. I'm not saying that all
these modules will build cleanly under Strawberry, but at least with
Strawberry a module author has the opportunity to fix the module on
their own without needing to have ActiveState involved in the process.
-packy
--
Packy Anderson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I'd be dead by 33; well, that was my best guess...
but, hey, here I am this morning.
Singing 'Happy Birthday to Me' as I clean up all this mess,
'Cause I'm left still alive without warning.
In the big boring middle of my long book of life,
after the twist has been told,
if you don't die in glory at the age of Christ
then your story is just getting old...
