Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
go ahead... be a heretic
 
PerlMonks  

Re: New-to-Perl: recommendations for windows setup? (updated)

by davies (Prior)
on Feb 16, 2021 at 12:06 UTC ( [id://11128436]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to New-to-Perl: recommendations for windows setup?

Strawberry Perl works well. You are / your newcomer is likely to need some use of the command prompt to see STDOUT & STDERR & use the cpan[m] tool, but file associations can be set up automagically by the installation process (I'll accept corrections on this), meaning that double clicking on a .pl in the explorer will Just Work. Also, the path to Perl itself is automatically created as part of the install process, so it can be run from any directory. But the real question is the purpose. Are you going to be writing Perl for $newcomer to execute, or will $newcomer be writing Perl? My experience of WinPerl IDEs has left me unimpressed. Padre was written by our own szabgab and I know one person who swears by ActiveState's Komodo, but I prefer Notepad++ with a command prompt to execute the files as & when I wish. But then I LIKE text interfaces.

If you want a cheap Linux box & are prepared to settle for 4Gb of RAM, consider a Raspberry Pi. You will have to add the hard disc over USB, but it may well be way under your budget & is likely to be more fun. Again, purpose matters here.

Regards,

John Davies

Update: I see your interest in WSL suggestions. If you want a comparable variant & aren't scared of an old version, git comes with Perl 5.8.8 on Windows.
C:\Git\bin>.\perl.exe -v This is perl, v5.8.8 built for msys

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: New-to-Perl: recommendations for windows setup? (updated)
by bliako (Monsignor) on Feb 16, 2021 at 20:32 UTC

    Oh so I just install git then. That's definetely a "plan-c" option.

    Are you going to be writing Perl for $newcomer to execute, or will $newcomer be writing Perl? My experience of WinPerl IDEs has left me unimpressed.

    I think both (and from a distance). So that's why an IDE sounds appealing as I will not be there.

Re^2: New-to-Perl: recommendations for windows setup?
by bliako (Monsignor) on Feb 16, 2021 at 20:09 UTC

    For starters we dig out a 5yr old Pi. And after an apt-get upgrade Perl was up and running. That was good fun indeed and a good suggestion for our "plan-b" option. I will certainly try all IDE-based options and then the rest as confidence is built.

    bw, bliako

Re^2: New-to-Perl: recommendations for windows setup? (updated)
by Bod (Parson) on Feb 17, 2021 at 21:45 UTC
    Strawberry Perl works well

    For a long time I used Active State. When I has changed laptop I thought I'd give Strawberry Perl a go and I know that I prefer it although I'm not sure I can articulate why.

    file associations can be set up automagically by the installation process (I'll accept corrections on this), meaning that double clicking on a .pl in the explorer will Just Work.

    Totally correct. Except that the process opens in a command window which closes when the script ends. So, it is necessary to add a delay to the end of the script if you want to see any output. But it is not onerous to type perl script.pl at the command prompt.

    If you want a cheap Linux box & are prepared to settle for 4Gb of RAM, consider a Raspberry Pi.

    That was exactly what I first thought!

    There is an 8Gb version. However, standard Raspberian is a 32 bit OS so cannot access more than 4Gb. There is a 64 bit version of the OS in beta form and it seems likely that a stable release will be along before too long.

      Bod:

      I'm not a Raspberry Pi guy (yet), but I'd expect it to work like a typical 32-bit x86 installation; meaning that while a single process is limited to 4GB, the OS can have multiple processes running to use the entire 8GB address space of the CPU. So you won't be wasting the capabilities of your 8GB RPi unless you're running just a couple of processes.

      ...roboticus

      When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

        ...but I'd expect it to work like a typical 32-bit x86 installation; meaning that while a single process is limited to 4GB, the OS can have multiple processes running to use the entire 8GB address space of the CPU

        You are correct...

        I skim read this article a few weeks back and it was only then that I realised the limitation of 4Gb RAM on a 32 bit. What I didn't properly read was:

        "The 32-bit kernel is joined by a 32-bit userspace, however: While the kernel can see and use all 8GB, any given process on the system is limited to 4GB. In other words: If you’re running a single application which doesn’t fork into multiple processes, it’ll only ever be able to grow to half the 8GB available"

        We 'attend' several virtual conferences and training session which are full day or multiple day events. So we take part using the big television in the sitting room. I plan to get a Raspberry Pi as streaming device for these events and it will largely just run one instance of one browser with one tab open so, for this application, I might hit the limitation. But for general usage, like the OP is looking for, it is probably the ideal solution.

Log In?
Username:
Password:

What's my password?
Create A New User
Domain Nodelet?
Node Status?
node history
Node Type: note [id://11128436]
help
Chatterbox?
and the web crawler heard nothing...

How do I use this?Last hourOther CB clients
Other Users?
Others avoiding work at the Monastery: (10)
As of 2024-03-28 10:50 GMT
Sections?
Information?
Find Nodes?
Leftovers?
    Voting Booth?

    No recent polls found