Shlomi Fish:
# Question: why can't we link against GNU's GMP to provide us
# with those big
# number facilities? Is there any reason we need to re-invent the wheel?
# (except to make Parrot self-contained and non dependent on
# anything else,
# which, IMO, is not a very good cause)
When asking why we don't use external tool or library X, first answer
three questions:
1. Does X meet our speed, size and flexibility requirements? (It
probably has to be fast, small and flexible enough to work on a Palm or
PocketPC. Parrot's core is currently between 250 and 700K, depending on
your OS and compiler--and 700K is pushing our realistic limit before
Palm users can't use Parrot very well.)
2. Does X work on all the platforms Parrot has to support? (Unix,
Windows, Mac OS Classic, VMS, Crays, Palm OS, etc. on the OS side, x86,
IA-64, SPARC, Alpha, ARM, PowerPC, 68x00 (Some Mac Classic machines and
the DragonBall processors used in Palms), etc. on the processor side.)
3. Does X have a license compatible with Parrot's? (This can usually be
translated to "Does X have the same license as Perl 5?", although there
are exceptions, such as the BSD and X licenses.)
*After* you've answered those three questions, proceed to ask why we're
doing it ourselves instead.
# He who re-invents the wheel, understands much better how a
# wheel works.
Then why do you complain about reinventing the wheel above? ;^)
--Brent Dax <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
@roles=map {"Parrot $_"} qw(embedding regexen Configure)
#define private public
--Spotted in a C++ program just before a #include
