EBook-Tools on CPAN - Page 3

tompe · 11-19-2008, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AZed

Hm. The main new feature from 5.10 that I'm using is the smart-match operator, which is a lot faster than the alternatives (some of which are incredibly messy). Perl 5.10 was released almost a year ago, and I hadn't figured people would still be seriously having problems obtaining it. (You're running Debian Stable on a desktop machine? Why? I'm a Debian developer and even I will cheerfully admit that Stable is generally already obsolete almost by the time it's released.)

This was my work machine and we have standardized on Debian stable. And I want to avoid having to install an extra Perl installation but of course it is easy to install 5.10 if you need it. My unstable laptop at home had 5.10 (but was that no a recent change?). I have to read about the smart operators to see if I want to use them myself. I have been bad at keeping up with new versions of Perl.

tompe · 11-19-2008, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nrapallo

I'm also stuck using ActivePerl 5.8.8 (build 820) for my Mobi2IMP package since it was originally based on tompe's html2mobi.pl. I don't want to lose/break anything if I get Perl 5.10.

Now, if tompe migrates to 5.10, so would I.

I am really not so interested in finding out how to compile to a Windows binary using 5.10. But some of the new syntactical things in 5.10 were really nice...

A Windows binary for MobiPerlhave been very good for getting people to use it but the disdvantage is that I will get more problem trying to change to Perl 5.10.

AZed · 11-19-2008, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tompe

This was my work machine and we have standardized on Debian stable. And I want to avoid having to install an extra Perl installation but of course it is easy to install 5.10 if you need it. My unstable laptop at home had 5.10 (but was that no a recent change?). I have to read about the smart operators to see if I want to use them myself. I have been bad at keeping up with new versions of Perl.

If there's not a really great need for me to make everything compatible with Perl 5.8, I'd really rather not (and I can't go back any earlier than that at all because proper Unicode support didn't show up until 5.8). If you and nrapallo decide that you really want to stick with 5.8, however (or if I start getting feedback that 5.10 is a major nuisance to get installed for people that want to use this), I do know what I'd technically need to do to yank the 5.10-specific code.

You might also find the following guides to the new 5.10 features informative:

Smart-Match
Defined-Or
5.10 Regular Expressions
Given/When (Switch)
All 5.10 changes

The big things to me were the smart-match, named regular expression, and speed improvements.

AZed · 11-19-2008, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tompe

I am really not so interested in finding out how to compile to a Windows binary using 5.10. But some of the new syntactical things in 5.10 were really nice...

A Windows binary for MobiPerlhave been very good for getting people to use it but the disdvantage is that I will get more problem trying to change to Perl 5.10.

Well, the ActiveState dev kit shouldn't have any more problem compiling 5.10 perl to exes than 5.8, but the major problem with the ActiveState 5.10 distribution is that its support for CPAN is basically broken (they've got some kind of critical bug with their YAML parser that breaks it), so you're limited to PPM-installs.

I've been meaning to test Strawberry Perl to see if that's a better general solution.

kennedyzor · 11-19-2008, 02:24 PM

Hi tompe

Could tell about TIVO clauses ? I would gladly hear some opinions & even better if a little explanation comes with the name.
Thank you.

pilotbob · 11-19-2008, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tompe

A Windows binary for MobiPerlhave been very good for getting people to use it but the disdvantage is that I will get more problem trying to change to Perl 5.10.

I do know that Mac comes with 5.8 pre installed... so I have not had to install or upgrade it at all. I assume I could install 5.10 using macports or maybe go to ActivestatePerl instead.

BOb

AZed · 11-19-2008, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I do know that Mac comes with 5.8 pre installed... so I have not had to install or upgrade it at all. I assume I could install 5.10 using macports or maybe go to ActivestatePerl instead.

What a mess. Okay, I'll yank the 5.10 code in the next release.

Could you please run 'perl -v' for me on your Mac and let me know exactly what version is installed? Early versions of 5.8 had some really ugly bugs that I'd rather not have to think about, IIRC, so I'm tempted to force at least 5.8.8, but I need to know if the MacOSX Perl can be counted on to be at least that high.

kovidgoyal · 11-19-2008, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AZed

What a mess. Okay, I'll yank the 5.10 code in the next release.

Could you please run 'perl -v' for me on your Mac and let me know exactly what version is installed? Early versions of 5.8 had some really ugly bugs that I'd rather not have to think about, IIRC, so I'm tempted to force at least 5.8.8, but I need to know if the MacOSX Perl can be counted on to be at least that high.

OS X Tiger has perl 5.8.6. OSX's support for open source libraries is in general very poor, they tend to be outdated and buggy, which is why I decided to bundle custom compiled versions with calibre.

pilotbob · 11-19-2008, 03:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AZed

What a mess. Okay, I'll yank the 5.10 code in the next release.

Could you please run 'perl -v' for me on your Mac and let me know exactly what version is installed? Early versions of 5.8 had some really ugly bugs that I'd rather not have to think about, IIRC, so I'm tempted to force at least 5.8.8, but I need to know if the MacOSX Perl can be counted on to be at least that high.

I think it is 5.8.6 on Tiger and 5.8.8 on Leopard. But, I would have to double check when I get home to my Mac. Also, if someone here has Tiger they can verify what version it has. Tiger released with 5.8.6 but subsequent updates could have brought it to 5.8.8.

Like I said... it is possible to upgrade it... but then I would have to modify my whole installing mobiperl tutorial. don't let me hold you back. I know how frustrating it is as a dev not being able to keep up to date with various tools.

BOb

AZed · 11-19-2008, 03:13 PM

Ugh, again. Releasing an entire distribution of Perl along with the module is not an option for me. I was able to confirm that Leopard is 5.8.8, though. I'm going to make that the minimum requirement, because 5.8.6 had a known bug dealing with using substr on unicode strings

I reserve the right to reclaim 5.10 features once 5.10 is standard both on Debian Stable and MacOSX, however.

nrapallo · 11-19-2008, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AZed

I reserve the right to reclaim 5.10 features once 5.10 is standard both on Debian Stable and MacOSX, however.

Sounds like a very good solution for all!

Thanks for your cross-platform support and understanding!

Now to get started on IMP.pm...

AZed · 11-19-2008, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nrapallo

Sounds like a very good solution for all!

Thanks for your cross-platform support and understanding!

Now to get started on IMP.pm...

0.3.2 has been uploaded, and should show up on CPAN whenever the CPAN indexer gets around to putting it there. Be aware that I don't actually have any dev boxes with 5.8.8 installed, so I can't test it directly, but in theory this should work on 5.8.8 or above now. It should also build now even if Module::Build isn't available. That may eventually go away again, but I won't change it until I actually implement something using the new Module::Build features.

Like I said, IMP.pm is going to take me a while, and I make no promises, but I am looking at it.

nrapallo · 11-19-2008, 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AZed

Like I said, IMP.pm is going to take me a while, and I make no promises, but I am looking at it.

No worry, I'm happy to contribute, explain, educate, ....

tompe · 11-19-2008, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AZed

Well, the ActiveState dev kit shouldn't have any more problem compiling 5.10 perl to exes than 5.8, but the major problem with the ActiveState 5.10 distribution is that its support for CPAN is basically broken (they've got some kind of critical bug with their YAML parser that breaks it), so you're limited to PPM-installs.

PPM-install probably is OK. The problem is the par support for building a Windows binary. I basically spent a day or so testing all possible permutations to get it to work on 5.8.8. But maybe it works better in 5.10.

tompe · 11-19-2008, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennedyzor

Hi tompe

Could tell about TIVO clauses ? I would gladly hear some opinions & even better if a little explanation comes with the name.
Thank you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization

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11-19-2008, 02:24 PM	#35
kennedyzor Banned Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2008 Device: none	Hi tompe Could tell about TIVO clauses ? I would gladly hear some opinions & even better if a little explanation comes with the name. Thank you.

11-19-2008, 03:13 PM	#40
AZed Connoisseur Posts: 57 Karma: 307 Join Date: Oct 2008 Device: PalmOS PDA	Ugh, again. Releasing an entire distribution of Perl along with the module is not an option for me. I was able to confirm that Leopard is 5.8.8, though. I'm going to make that the minimum requirement, because 5.8.6 had a known bug dealing with using substr on unicode strings I reserve the right to reclaim 5.10 features once 5.10 is standard both on Debian Stable and MacOSX, however.