I can use some hard figures: HP-UX 10.20, considered dead, abandoned by HP years ago. I still make perl available in software depots for this OS on my website for users of this OS. Let's call these "innocent users". They probably have to maintain this old OS for whatevere obnoxious reason, but apparently they do. Only this year, perl has been downloaded for HP-UX 10.20 602 times. Of those, there were 5 for 5.12, 25 for 5.10.1, 19 for 5.10.0 and 34 for 5.8.9, so these people are still interested in recent versions of our favorite scripting language.

There is no C99 compliant version of HP C-ANSI-C available for HP-UX 10.20, and there never will be. You need HP C-ANSI-C to build GNU gcc on HP-UX (or a pretty recent version of gcc that someone else built for you). That is why I also make builds for gcc available. Building gcc-4 is absolutely impossible on HP-UX 10.20.

If these people want to install a CPAN module that uses XS code, they need to have a C-compiler installed. No C99 available for HP-UX 10.20, so end-of-story.

Now back to your claim: of those hundreds (or thousands) of Perl module authors, how many use XS code? And of those (which is in my guess way below 30%) how many use (or want to use) specific C99 features?</P.

In that perspective, isn't it reasonable to ask politely to consider using C89, and not beyond? How many limitations are you aware of that would make your XS coding less fun? (besides the silly // comments that should never have been added to ANSI-C: C is neither java nor C++)

HP-UX 10.20, considered dead, abandoned by HP years ago.I still make perl available in software depots for this OS on my website for users of this OS.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe HP had good reasons for dropping support of this ancient OS? And that by persisting in supporting it, you are creating the problem? ( Are you up for supporting MS C v6.0a for OS/2 also? I still have the diskettes.)

besides the silly // comments that should never have been added to ANSI-C.

And there it is. You want the world to comply to your archaic preferences, despite that your preferences are contrary to those adopted by the rest of the world. Look to thy self.

---

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

RIP an inspiration; A true Folk's Guy

HP probably had good reason. My guess is not that the OS sucks, but a shortage of resources. Besides: they are commercial, we are volunteers.

Essentially it is the same problem with any software. We still get bug reports for perl-5.6. We then tell those users to upgrade to a more recent version of perl, but sometimes users can't or are not allowed. Why they can't or why they are not allowed is way beyond our control.

IMHO the perl community has alwys tried to still answer those questions, in my experience in a very polity way.

Sometimes the people that help (and I consider you one of those) even propose patches that will never be applied to recent code, but only fix old problems. Those patches might be just references to (git) commits with comments like "This has already be fixed for more recent versions of perl/this module in a patch that you can fine here".

So, I don't consider me a source of a problem, but a small resource to help those in need. I cannot force them to upgrade hardware or OS, but I can encourage them to use more recent versions of my/our favorite language: perl.

OT: we're not discussing my personal preferences here. That could warrant a new thread indeed :) and I can assure you we won't agree on a lot of things!


Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn