Yes.

Perl is not running on the .NET VM, is it?

No.

then if you use Perl on .NET it won't be portable to other platforms

Er, maybe im confused by what you mean by this, but the previous two answers (which you asked rhetorically, so you know this already) clearly indicate that the perl code you write using the .NET IDE, so long as it doesnt utilize other .NET features should be just as (non)portable as the same code written using Emacs, Ultraedit or the commandline. Why should the fact that youve used the activestate IDE change anything?

Yves / DeMerphq
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Writing a good benchmark isnt as easy as it might look.

The point was that if you actually use the ability to interoperate between .NET and Perl, then you have used something that is specific to the Microsoft implementation of .NET which is not supported by other versions of the CLR.

Therefore that is a non-portable thing that is easy to take advantage of. (And is one of Microsoft's platform lock-in tricks even while they make a great song and dance over being platform independent.)

Now if you use Visual Studio to write Perl and you don't interoperate with .NET in the resulting code, then you have no portability problems. But if you use the PerlNet component, expecting to take advantage of the features that Microsoft lists (including portability), then you have fallen for a bit of a sham.

My understanding of these matters is that if you write .NET specific code then there is no reason to expect cross-platform compatibility. So I dont see that its a sham. Its kindof like writing code that uses System V IPC rouines and expecting it to run on a Win32 box.

Im sure that when Microsoft said portability they meant from one Win32 Box to another ;-)

And you dont really believe anything that MS says anyway do you?

Yves / DeMerphq
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Writing a good benchmark isnt as easy as it might look.