Oooh, through selecting some random stuff, I seem to have got Fink to install perl5.8.0.
This means I've got three (count 'em, three!) working versions of Perl on this laptop.
It's all madness I tell you. OTOH, one of richardc's machines on this network has ten different copies of perl installed on it - though those are mainly used for regression testing.
Having a private copy of perl as part of an application that uses perl is a useful thing.
It means that the application, from one release to the next, can determine when and whether to upgrade from one version of perl to another based on actual testing.
The application can also bundle in the specific extra modules that it needs (that's part of the testing - to make sure that the modules included are all compatible with each other to the extent needed). It can omit bundling modules that it doesn't use, even ones that normally come with the default distribution.
Meanwhile, the owner of the system can choose when and whether to upgrade the version of perl used for other purposes, or add or upgrade (or downgrade) modules, at his own convenience - without worrying about breaking the (perhaps critical) application.
