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Standard build toolsStandard build toolsPosted Dec 25, 2009 14:23 UTC (Fri) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)In reply to: Quotes of the week by Cato Parent article: Quotes of the week
When postgresql was being ported to windows there was a need for a portable scripting language. They standardised on perl in part because you can get it to run just about anywhere, even windows.
The intention was to not require it on UNIX systems but as it turned out some bits were missed but no-one ever complained. Apparently no-one had tried to compile postgres on a system without perl installed. Whatever you may think of it, it *is* everywhere.
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Standard build tools Posted Dec 26, 2009 1:58 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
no, perl is not everywhere
perl is on normal desktop systems, it is on server systems that would run postgres, but it is not always on small systems (netbooks, embedded, etc)
it's also not a fast thing to port to a new architecture, and if you are trying to get a self hosted environment going on a new system, having to get perl running before you can compile a kernel is a significant amount of additional work.
If perl was being used for really important, complicated things there may be justification for requiring it, but as Rob Landley has shown with his patches to remove the perl dependancy in the kernel build process, it's not used for very much.
Standard build tools Posted Jan 7, 2010 19:42 UTC (Thu) by abadidea (guest, #62082) [Link]
If a system is incapable of hosting Perl (and my PDA has perl), should you
really be compiling the kernel directly on that system?...
(IDC about the perl thing one way or the other, just saying.)
Standard build tools Posted Jan 9, 2010 7:54 UTC (Sat) by jmm82 (guest, #59425) [Link]
Many embedded devices use microperl, but they also cross compile their
builds on another system, anyways, so it does not really matter if the actual device has perl.
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