All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

The Pain

ferreira on 2005-09-20T19:39:45

I have the misfortune to a be customary Windows user. But sometimes it is so much pain, that I would rather be doing something different. Perl mostly works in Windows, but don't push too hard about CPAN modules. Many libraries will be very hard to install (if you are weak in sysadmin, C hacking like I am). For example, I have never been able to compile DBD::Oracle - it just not works because of some dull things. Everytime I had to reinstall Perl, I remember the suffering of configuring CPAN and CPANPLUS behind a Squid proxy. (To be true, right now I don't remember how to make CPANPLUS work behind the proxy.) I use cygwin as well, but any OS is crippled under a crippled base. I will try harder to understand why things fail sometimes and how they can be fixed. Maybe I can even contribute, so others can be saved from such fate.

An example of nightmare is when you just installed Perl, Squid does not allow you to use ftp, and you don't have LWP because it does not belong the standard distribution. Have you ever tried to install libwww-perl manually?

Which Perl are you using on Windows?

Limbic Region on 2005-09-20T20:20:41

If you are using ActiveState and are not familiar with PPM and the precompiled binaries then you really should check it out. There are a good number of repositories out there besides the defaults provided by AS so google is your friend.

If you have built your own perl using mingw or another free compiler then you will obviously want to compile your modules using the same compiler. You probably also do not want to use the archaic nmake15.exe but something made in this century.

If this wasn't just a general rant and a specific request for help - reply or better yet, post at the Monastery (http://perlmonks.orgso/ everyone can benefit from the answer

Cheers,
Limbic~Region

Re:Which Perl are you using on Windows?

ferreira on 2005-09-21T11:36:40

Lots of Perl: PXPerl 5.8.6 (compiled with Intel compiler), ActiveState 5.6.1 and 5.8.4, cygwin 5.8.7 - well, there is also a prehistoric 5.00503 within an installation of Teradata tools. (The PXPerl is a jewel that allowed me the first contact with parrot and pugs - but it has some weird things: I can't save CPAN configuration, every module installation ends by saying it couldnot register properly the installed modules, and of course no XS because I don't have the Intel compiler.)

All of them work and are annoying sometimes when trying to install some CPAN bits. PPM complains almost more than I do - it is never happy with the Perl architecture I am in - it always wants something else. But that's how I ever managed to use DBD::Oracle in my Windoze machines. Giving substance to my claims, I will try to post at the Monastery. Thanks for your suggestions.

Re:

Aristotle on 2005-09-22T14:34:06

Try installing wget for Windows. It’s a very handy tool in any case, and CPAN.pm will make use of it if it finds it.