Wow thanks for all the input! I'm slogging along with the Llama book,
and I have some MySQL (new to that too) stuff working. I'm concerned,
thought, that I'm creating a mess by installing modules and downloading
stuff. Likewise I've been using CPAN with no clue as to what I'm doing.
Is there a book or site that covers working with CPAN and using modules
that is appropriate for Panther? Googling & the O'Reily Mac site have
turned up lots of fixes for gotchas, but not much for the newbie.
That being said, is it normal that a lot of the CPAN stuff (of interest
to me) is really old? It seems odd to be using 5 year old stuff!
Mike
Lola Lee - 04 Feb 2005 16:09 GMT
Mike Lesser said the following on 2/4/05 10:53 AM:
> stuff. Likewise I've been using CPAN with no clue as to what I'm doing.
> Is there a book or site that covers working with CPAN and using modules
> that is appropriate for Panther? Googling & the O'Reily Mac site have
> turned up lots of fixes for gotchas, but not much for the newbie.
There's a new website that has been set up - http://www.cpanforum.com .
. . it's very new but it looks to be a good place to post questions
about modules that you're interested in. Of course, I hope that you've
looked through http://www.cpan.org
> That being said, is it normal that a lot of the CPAN stuff (of interest
> to me) is really old? It seems odd to be using 5 year old stuff!
> Mike
Well, it's a judgement call. I'm sure there are sites (such as banks)
that run on code that was developed in a previous Perl version for which
these modules work with. Which modules are you interested in? Perhaps
there's another newer module that accomplishes the same functionality
that you're looking for.

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Sherm Pendley - 04 Feb 2005 16:39 GMT
> Googling & the O'Reily Mac site have turned up lots of fixes for
> gotchas, but not much for the newbie.
There's not much said about using Perl that's Mac-specific because
there's really not all that much *to* say - for the most part, it's
just like using Perl on any other UNIX variant. The "gotchas" you
mentioned are the exceptions, areas where the Mac thinks different.
> That being said, is it normal that a lot of the CPAN stuff (of
> interest to me) is really old?
You'll have to be more specific - it varies.
The most popular modules are regularly maintained - the latest DBI, for
instance, is just a few days old. Some modules might be regarded by
their authors as finished - Text::Template, for example, is a workhorse
that works very well, but it hasn't been changed in nearly two years.
Some modules have been folded into the core Perl distribution, and the
authors of those modules may have stopped updating the standalone
versions. Other modules might very well be truly obsolete, abandoned,
or never finished in the first place.
sherm--
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