MacPerl 5.6.1b3 has been released. The development cycle is nearing an end, so check it out now if you want to look at it before a final release. And if you downloaded 5.6.1b2 and installed it, you can just re-run the installer and it will download just the pieces you need, instead of downloading the whole thing. Neat.
Note that a new version of Shuck is involved in this release. It has several cool new features and is cleaned up a bit, thanks to Thomas Wegner.
(I admit it, I succumbed and ordered one of the new iMacs yesterday, hours after I first saw it. It's my first Mac in ten years, so I'm suddenly curious about Mac software again
Re:MacPerl and Mac OS X?
pudge on 2002-01-08T16:48:58
On the link to MacPerl in the story, it says this:MacPerl runs under the Classic environment on Mac OS X. There are currently no plans to port it to Carbon. Unix perl runs just fine under Mac OS X. It would be nice to, at some point, have the Toolbox modules (Mac::Windows, Mac::Events) Carbonized so the same GUI-based MacPerl programs would run on both platforms. This may happen in the future. There is a separate mailing list for perl on Mac OS X.Does that answer your question? If not, I can clarify more. Basically, perl comes with Mac OS X, as you know. MacPerl is written to run as a Mac OS app, not a Mac OS X app, or a "Carbon" app (one that runs under both Mac OS and Mac OS X). There's no reason to have MacPerl on Mac OS X aside from the Mac:: modules (and indeed, I use MacPerl under Classic in Mac OS X for just this reason).
But as to MacPerl nearing the end of its life, that is true as much as Mac OS is nearing the end of its life. And no one can really say how true that is. I have no plans to move to Mac OS X as my primary desktop OS any time soon, and many others are in the same situation. Moving to Mac OS X would make me less productive and less efficient and less happy; so as long as this is the case, I stay on MacPerl, and I continue to, as possible, develop MacPerl.
So I guess another question in there is how long will people be around to develop MacPerl. I've committed to MacPerl 5.6.1, and might get around to doing MacPerl 5.8.0. However, I intend to finish MacPerl 5.6.1 in such a manner that it would be fairly simple to upgrade the source to 5.8.0 (it's basically there already; all the patches we've needed to get MacPerl 5.6.1 to run are included in the primary sources for 5.6.1 and what will be 5.8.0). So if I don't do it, someone else probably can. I probably will do it, though.
One thing is nearly certain: I won't switch to Mac OS X until I can be as productive on it as I am on Mac OS, and that won't happen, probably, until the Mac:: modules are ported to Carbon.
