" Maynard) (11/22/89)
In article <3273@convex.UUCP> tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) writes: >Please don't take this wrong, but why DON'T you have perl? If you can >post this note, you can get perl. It's freely available from FTP and >plain old uumail-type archive servers all over the net. Its author, >Larry Wall, is the same man who brought you rn, metaconfig, and patch. >He privately supports perl better than any industrial software house >that I've ever seen. He's extremely helpful in getting perl running on >new machines, and I'll bet it's already been tweaked for your >architecture. If you've ever run one of Larry's Configure scripts, you >know what I mean. Perl won't run on my 286-powered system. Larry's comment about "perl probably won't run on 16-bit systems" is dead on. I'm watching the world do great things in perl, and I'm jealous, knowing that Larry has succumbed to the Richard Stallman Syndrome: "That's not a real computer, and I won't program to it." Richard is as blatant about it as he is about the GNU Manifesto's real objectives. I don't really think Larry has it in for 16-bit machines, but then again, perl could have been written to avoid the more obvious limitations...as it is now, perl crashes and burns spectacularly. Just as net policy should not be made on the assumption that everyone has rn (because it's not standard), programming should not be done on the assumption that everyone has perl. -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can jay@splut.conmicro.com (eieio)| adequately be explained by stupidity. {attctc,bellcore}!texbell!splut!jay +---------------------------------------- _free press_, n.: 100 men imposing their prejudices on 100 million.
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (11/23/89)
In article <1989Nov22.153901.3503@splut.conmicro.com> jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) writes: | Perl won't run on my 286-powered system. Larry's comment about "perl | probably won't run on 16-bit systems" is dead on. I was able to get an earlier version to compile and run a test program, then archived it and went on to other things. If you want to try, I set the minimum size to create a new segment quite low, then set the max number of segments up until it loaded. Compiled in large model with -W2 to get warned of places where pointers were put into int's etc. I used the -Zg option and some little scripts to create a prototypes header, and included it in every module. Hope this helps. I haven't forgotten how hard I worked to run stuff before I got the 386, but I'm working on it... -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon
tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) (11/23/89)
>Just as net policy should not be made on the assumption that everyone >has rn (because it's not standard), programming should not be done on >the assumption that everyone has perl. There is no "standard" newsreader, is there? I'm not sure: I was so delighted with rn after gagging on readnews and vnews years ago when it came out that I've not forgotten whether "readnews" is actually standard. And "cut" and "paste" aren't standard, and "sh" or "awk" with functions aren't standard. Few C library functions are standard. Until POSIX boxes us all into a tight, conformant little cubicle, there'll be no true universal standard. I maintain that you can do nearly nothing at all if you want to be utterly standard, whatever that really means. It's a great tribute to perl that it runs on as many machines as it does. Guys, it's getting awfully close to time to move this discussion off to alt.religion.computers, don't you think? --tom Tom Christiansen {uunet,uiucdcs,sun}!convex!tchrist Convex Computer Corporation tchrist@convex.COM "EMACS belongs in <sys/errno.h>: Editor too big!"
tale@pawl.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) (11/23/89)
In <1989Nov22.153901.3503@splut.conmicro.com> jay@splut.conmicro.com
(Jay Maynard) writes:
Jay> I'm watching the world do great things in perl, and I'm jealous, knowing
Jay> that Larry has succumbed to the Richard Stallman Syndrome: "That's not a
Jay> real computer, and I won't program to it." Richard is as blatant about
Jay> it as he is about the GNU Manifesto's real objectives. I don't really
Jay> think Larry has it in for 16-bit machines, but then again, perl could
Jay> have been written to avoid the more obvious limitations...as it is now,
Jay> perl crashes and burns spectacularly.
This is actually pretty amusing. Now it's a pathological disorder to
write good software that runs on a variety of machines, but not all of
them. Now you might believe that Richard needs treatment for other
things, but I don't think this is one of them.
[Obligatory religious cut: You'd have to ship a few MTS/Plus
programmers that way first.]
Dave
--
(setq mail '("tale@pawl.rpi.edu" "tale@ai.mit.edu" "tale@rpitsmts.bitnet"))chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) (11/24/89)
According to jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard): >Perl won't run on my 286-powered system. Larry's comment about "perl >probably won't run on 16-bit systems" is dead on. Hah. Some debugging on my part made Perl 2.0 run under Xenix/286. Now I don't use '286 systems any more. If no one else bothers to do a port to the '286, I don't see how that's Larry's fault. -- You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. Chip Salzenberg at A T Engineering; <chip@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip> "Did I ever tell you the Jim Gladding story about the binoculars?"
kjones@talos.uucp (Kyle Jones) (11/25/89)
Jay Maynard writes: > I'm watching the world do great things in perl, and I'm jealous, knowing > that Larry has succumbed to the Richard Stallman Syndrome: "That's not a > real computer, and I won't program to it." Richard is as blatant about > it as he is about the GNU Manifesto's real objectives. I don't really > think Larry has it in for 16-bit machines, but then again, perl could > have been written to avoid the more obvious limitations...as it is now, > perl crashes and burns spectacularly. David C Lawrence writes: > This is actually pretty amusing. Now it's a pathological disorder to > write good software that runs on a variety of machines, but not all of > them. Now you might believe that Richard needs treatment for other > things, but I don't think this is one of them. I disagree. Take GNU Emacs as an example. While Emacs runs on lots of platforms, no one who's looked at its code would ever dream of calling it portable. GNU Emacs has proliferated mainly because of the hard work of those who have ported it to other systems, not because it was originally written with portability in mind. Now, while I think it's wonderful that Emacs has a strong enough following that such jackleg maintenance is possible, this does not change the fact that it is lousy software engineering practice to write systems that *have* to be maintained this way.
roe@sobmips.UUCP (r.peterson) (11/25/89)
From article <3384@convex.UUCP>, by tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen): > And "cut" and "paste" aren't standard, and "sh" or "awk" with functions > aren't standard. Maybe not. But, if you don't have cut and paste, complain bitterly to your vendor. They've been on every unix box I've ever used, since V7 on a PDP 11/40. -- If the brain were so simple we understood it|Roe Peterson We would be so simple we couldn't. |{attcan,mcgill-vision}!sobeco!roe
merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) (12/04/89)
In article <1989Nov25.033949.948@sobmips.UUCP>, roe@sobmips (r.peterson) writes: | From article <3384@convex.UUCP>, by tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen): | > And "cut" and "paste" aren't standard, and "sh" or "awk" with functions | > aren't standard. | | Maybe not. But, if you don't have cut and paste, complain bitterly to | your vendor. They've been on every unix box I've ever used, since V7 | on a PDP 11/40. V7 did *not* have cut and paste! These were in System III ("the best Zenith ever") and brought over to the SVID, thus available in System V-dot-whatever. But they were *not* in V6, V7, or PWB/Unix, or any of the early BSDs (maybe now... I don't get 4.4BSD... sigh). If you had it on your V7 box, you weren't running out-of-the-box V7. Just another old UNIX hacker (no, not telling you *how* old... :-), -- /== Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ====\ | on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA, Sol III | | merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | \== Cute Quote: "Welcome to Oregon... Home of the California Raisins!" ==/
roe@sobmips.UUCP (r.peterson) (12/06/89)
From article <5309@omepd.UUCP>, by merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz): > > V7 did *not* have cut and paste! [ ... ] > If you had it on your V7 box, you weren't running out-of-the-box V7. > Maybe not. But, they were in the V7 distribution we ported in 1976. IMHO, anything that has been available in non-bsd distribution for 13 years should be part of *all* unix distributions. -- One makes strong assumptions delving Roe Peterson into the beginning of the universe... {uunet,mcgill-vision}!sobeco!roe - Stephen Hawking, Cambridge