Re: [HACKERS] perl/perl5

> From: dg@illustra.com (David Gould)
> Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 23:21:37 -0800 (PST)

> If you ask a perl4 question on the comp.lang.perl, well, just lets say you
> won't be "helped" much. The offical perl position is the perl4 is an
> obsolete nightmare that they are all trying to forget as rapidly as possible
> and that perl5 is the bright shiny present and future. That is, perl4
> is not supported anymore, please upgrade etc...
> 
> So, given that it is pretty darn easy to get perl5 these days, it has been
> out for a few years with good results, is very compatible with perl4 anyhow,
> and really is better for a number of reasons, I see no reason to continue
> to support perl4.
> 
> Lets just do it. If for some obsolete platforms like SCO or suchlike this
> means that they will have to download perl5 and pgsql, so be it. The DB
> support is so much better it will be doing them a favor anyway...
> 
> -dg

I basically agree with this but there is one minor problem with
FreeBSD in that it still inexplicably ships with /usr/bin/perl which
is Perl 4 - you have to add Perl 5 which becomes /usr/local/bin/perl.
If I had total control of all our servers I would just rename the old
perl to perl4 (or delete it!) but I don't have that luxury.

So the FreeBSD pg/Perl install should probably have a tweak to look
for /usr/local/bin/perl and not stumble into /usr/bin/[dead]perl.
Don't know about other BSD's.

Hal