[techtalk] Re: Linux-Mandrake

[Martin.Caitlyn at epamail.epa.gov]

Hi, James, and everyone else,

> Nicer, I'll agree, but I'm not sure I can ever forgive them those stupid
> Perl wrappers round everything... When I run "gcc", I want to be running
> the GNU C Compiler, not some sort of colouring-in-script wrapped round
it!

Not to split hairs, but...  you *are* running gcc, the genuine GNU C
Compiler, but invoking from a script which makes the output easier to read.
To me that isn't an unpardonable sin, but rather an attempt to make my life
easier.  Considering how much of my admin time is spent in a terminal
window SSHed into various boxes, I actually appreciate what they've done.
What is the old (and therefore, somewhat sexist) expression?  "One man's
meat is another man's poison", right?

I do agree that breaking Perl is a *very* bad thing.  On my systems that
will break most of my scripts.  Without Perl, none of my systems will meet
Agency standards any more, and my customers, mostly scientists, will become
testy indeed, since all of their scripts will break too.  So... it isn't
just that basic commands and apps would be broken, though that certainly
*is* extremely serious.  Any distro that breaks Perl will generally create
bunches and bunches of work for me.

BTW, didn't Red Hat 7.0 ship with a broken beta gcc?  I'm not harshing on
Red Hat, BTW.  I'm comparing the most popular (and a pretty good) distro to
Mandrake is all.  We skipped 7.0 at work.  We're going straight from 6.2 to
7.1, and both will likely be approved systems for some time to come.

Regards,
Cait

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Caitlyn M. Martin             martin.caitlyn at epa.gov
Systems Analyst              (919) 541-4441
Lockheed Martin
(a contractor for the US EPA)
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