On Artificial Unspecified Constraints

p.s., I am aware that Date::Calc will make this easy but that is not an option for some reason :-)

Is the reason one of:

This is homework
You don't know because you're not the one solving this problem, and that was given as an artificial constraint
It has to be fast
You don't know how to install modules into your own space
Even though you're root, you don't know how to install modules, period
Something else I didn't think of in 30 seconds

I really get a bit annoyed when someone says "I want to do $x, but it can't include obvious solution $y", because that doesn't tell me anything about how close to $y I can get.

Please explain further.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

Comment on On Artificial Unspecified Constraints

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Re: On Artificial Unspecified Constraints by data67 (Monk) on Oct 11, 2001 at 21:37 UTC
The reason that i can't use Date::Calc now is that i am running Perl 4.0 and i can't upgrade now. If this does not work, you guessed it...	[reply]
Re: Re: On Artificial Unspecified Constraints by merlyn (Sage) on Oct 11, 2001 at 23:57 UTC
i am running Perl 4.0 and i can't upgrade now. Uh, exactly the same question occurs to me. Why? Why have you introduced this constraint, because removing it would solve most (if not all) of your problems? -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker	[reply]
Re: Re: On Artificial Unspecified Constraints by runrig (Abbot) on Oct 12, 2001 at 00:35 UTC
Are you writing new code or trying add an enhancement/fix to 1000's of lines of legacy code in a short amount of time? If you have legacy code, keep separate installations of perl so that anything new can be done in the latest/greatest ways with the latest/greatest modules, and you can convert legacy code at your leisure until you can just get rid of Perl 4.	[reply]