Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!stc!idec!marlow!fox From: fox@marlow.uucp (Paul Fox) Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: Re: v16i034: Larry Wall's Configure generator, etc., Part01/07 Message-ID: <481@alice.marlow.uucp> Date: 31 Oct 88 19:09:17 GMT References: <3412@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> Reply-To: fox@marlow.UUCP (Paul Fox) Organization: Reuters Ltd PLC, Marlow, Bucks, England Lines: 46 In article <3412@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) writes: >In article jl42+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jay Mathew Libove) writes: >: Well, Larry (for the first time I've ever seen) made a number of very >: very bad assumptions in his configure distribution. >: Just to add my tuppence worth. I thing Configure is one of the nicest things I have seen in a long while, and I have great respect for Larry's software. Anything written by him seems to be very useful >crawl< >crawl<... Anyway having got that over with, I must say I am pretty p*ssed off with Configure. I have tried 3 times to get Configure working on our Sun, and although I am capable of getting it to work if I spend three days on it, I do not have 3 days. I first came across Configure (dist) on osu-cis. I downloaded the code only to find it needed perl 2.0 (we had perl 1.x). So I brought out perl 2.0 from our archive and tried to include the upteen odd patches only to find I needed patch version xx.yy. Back to osu-cis to get this. Then patch aborts with some message (for which I dont have time to RTFM - which FM ? Perl ? Patch ? Dist ? ) and so I cannot get dist to work. I thing perl is very nice, but I do not have the time or energy to learn and use it on our system. I always think it is dangerous to use sed or awk, because Vaxes etc dont freely have them....I dont want perl to add to my problems, etc, etc. Anyway the sum of this is that I really want Configure but I dont want to port perl. I know perl has been done but I do not have the time. Maybe perl could be reposted with all the patches applied ? Maybe configure could be not written in perl ? ---- I am just a poor rambler....excuse my posting. ===================== // o All opinions are my own. (O) ( ) The powers that be ... / \_____( ) o \ | /\____\__/ Tel: +44 628 891313 x. 212 _/_/ _/_/ UUCP: fox@marlow.uucp