in reply to Re: Disputation of g0n on the power and efficacy of XS
in thread Disputation of g0n on the power and efficacy of XS

What makes you think I'm running windows? There are plenty of commercial unix variants that do not come with C compilers (including AIX, the one I'm using). In point of fact, my personal choice of OS is Linux, and I run it on all my own machines. My customers, on the other hand, do not.

g0n, backpropagated monk
  • Comment on Re^2: Disputation of g0n on the power and efficacy of XS

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Re^3: Disputation of g0n on the power and efficacy of XS
by zentara (Cardinal) on Apr 21, 2005 at 12:11 UTC
    Ok, I guess I jumped to a wrong conclusion, since most whiners about XS seem to come from Windows users. So then the question becomes "If it's such a PITA, why do you support AIX ? "

    I don't think you have made any points against XS, and I doubt if module writers are going to go through the hassle of making "special pure perl ports" of their XS-based modules, just so a few people can avoid the hassle of installing a C compiler on their platform(Well maybe if you pay them). If you are doing this for some customers, who won't change, explain the situation to them, and charge them more money for "YOU" to write the pure perl ports of the modules.

    Also what puzzles me, if you advertise your services, to support AIX, why don't YOU buy a compiler for AIX, and compile the XS modules for your AIX customers?


    I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh
      Ok, I guess I jumped to a wrong conclusion, since most whiners about XS seem to come from Windows users. So then the question becomes "If it's such a PITA, why do you support AIX ? "

      I don't. I'm providing service, not software as such. The machines I'm working on are the customers own machines, running AIX.

      I don't think you have made any points against XS, and I doubt if module writers are going to go through the hassle of making "special pure perl ports" of their XS-based modules, just so a few people can avoid the hassle of installing a C compiler on their platform(Well maybe if you pay them).

      I didn't set out to 'make points against XS', I set out to start a discussion (and post an ecclesiastical history joke). I said in the OP that XS causes me pain, and it does. I also said that it would be nice to have pure perl alternatives even if I have to write them myself.

      Also what puzzles me, if you advertise your services, to support AIX, why don't YOU buy a compiler for AIX, and compile the XS modules for your AIX customers?

      As above, I don't 'advertise my services to support AIX'. I happen to be working on AIX at the moment, because that's what the project I'm working on uses. On the last project it was Win2k, before that a mixture of RedHat & WinNT, before that (etc etc etc). I use perl to automate support tasks & provide glue code between data sources - not as a language to write shrink wrapped apps in. Just as TIMTOWTDI, TIMTOUFP: There Is More Than One Use For Perl.

      g0n, backpropagated monk
        Yeah, OK, I'm sorry if I tried to get you ruffled. I admire your ability to jump around to different platforms, I sure can't.

        I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh