[PLUG] Using a new perl on CentOS...

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 12:45:30AM -0700, Larry Brigman wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 10:17 AM, Patrick J. Timlick
> <p.j.timlick at ieee.org> wrote:
> > In my "Wierd Things That Happen" experience, one should heed Keith's
> > cautions and advice when attempting to upgrade Python.   Do just as he says,
> > except replace Perl with Python.
> >
> 
> Nice jab at Perl.  Trying to upgrade Python from 2.4 to 2.5 or 2.6 on a Distro
> like Centos 5 is really painful.  Not really worth the effort to do a
> full replacement.

Some are misunderstanding Pat.  He did not mean replacing system
Perl with system Python.  He endorsed my suggestion regards Perl.

His suggestion was to s/Perl/Python/ to my message and treat Python
the same way.  That is, leave /usr/bin/python alone and make upgrades
to /usr/local/bin/python .  A wise extension of a basic philosophy -
let updates manage the distro, make improvements to /usr/local .

While a dependency-free distro would be a nice dream (why oh why
can't dependencies be managed per individual tool, not whole
systems?), in reality a change to one tool affects many others. 
I run distros, rather than roll my own, because I'm relying on
The Upstream Vendor to do the regression testing for me.

I suspect there are other tools in the distro that should be left
alone, with upgrades going into /usr/local/bin instead.  Perhaps
the C compiler.  Other suggestions?

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs