Re: perl path patch

[Eric Siegerman]

On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 05:24:05PM -0700, Michael Pruett wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 06:18:31PM -0600, Tom Tromey wrote:
> > >>>>> "Michael" == Michael Pruett <address@hidden> writes:
> > 
> > Michael> Here's a small patch against automake 1.6.2 which allows
> > Michael> automake to use the copy of Perl in the user's path (which
> > Michael> may differ from the path with which automake was built) as
> > Michael> long as that version is sufficiently recent (where
> > Michael> sufficiently recent here means Perl 5.6 or newer).

-1.  I'd *much* rather that automake use the Perl it was
configured with (and subsequently regression-tested with) than
whatever random Perl some user happens to have stuck first in
their path.

I spent last winter autoconfiscating (and automakifying) a
package specifically to *reduce* its dependencies on the user's
environment, since we found that those dependencies were causing
endless grief.  Same principle should apply to the tools
themselves, IMO.

> It is onerous to
> require the user to have Perl at the same location as that with which
> automake was built.

Why is that onerous?

It is *extremely* onerous to have two packages, A and B, which
are intended to interoperate, each of which requires a different
version of program X to be first in the path.

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        address@hidden
|  |  /
Anyone who swims with the current will reach the big music steamship;
whoever swims against the current will perhaps reach the source.
        - Paul Schneider-Esleben