Perl patches (was Re: shar 3.49 (part 2 of 2))

[Kent Paul Dolan]

peltz at cerl.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz) writes:
> xanthian at zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
>> the host site, and Boom! -- another patch.  Since no "patch" was available
>> for my home system in those days, _upload_ perl, _patch_ perl, _download_
>> perl, _delete_ perl on the host, iterate 25 more times.

>You're telling us that you could bring up perl on your home system, but not
>patch? Now that is truly amazing.

If you check, you'll notice the words "_compile_ perl" occur nowhere in the
quote.  This was long before a compiler existed for my system robust enough
to handle that much source code, but archiving it away for later days was
possible.

I think the point is still being missed here. Larry Wall had, when he
release perl, about 26 patches _in_hand_, but rather than make the first
release at patch level 26, released patchlevel 0 and 26 patch postings. Good
sense would suggest limiting the work of patching _when_ _the_ _patch_ _is_
_in_ _hand_ to the site of origin, rather than multiplying the work by
distributing unpatched code. This is not a call to stop using patch, not a
call to stop distributing beta code, not a call to stop distributing
patches, just a call to use some sense when doing software releases. Why the
arguments?  Does someone think it made more sense the way Larry did it?  If
so, why?  It caused more work, used more bandwidth, and came to the same
product at the end.

Kent, the man from xanth.
<xanthian at Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian at well.sf.ca.us>