[ic] Threaded perl (re: debian bug #203579)

[Jeff Fearn]

On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 00:47:16 -0600, Karl Schmidt <karl at xtronics.com> wrote:
> I just ran the test listed in this deb bug report code using perl 5.8.4 and got
> a seg fault. I'm confused - I read in a few places that this was no longer a
> problem? I wanted to run Interchange with stock debian perl code if I can, but
> I'm not sure if this is still an issue?
> 
> This bug is getting close to 2 years old -seems like perl should default to non
> threaded or this bug should get fixed?
> 
> I ran the test code listed in the debian bug and got a seg fault with the
> testing version of perl.
> 
> But this:
> http://www.perl.com/lpt/a/2003/01/16/whatsnew.html
> 
> --seems to imply that it is fixed????? (see under the "Perl Threads" section.)
> 
> Has anyone in perl upstream ever looked at this?:
> 
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=203579
> 
> Isn't this the same bug that causes(d) problems in interchange?
> 
> How can I test for the perl thread bug in interchange?
> 
> Can someone provide an authoritative update of the status of the threaded issue?

I don't believe there is any specifc bug in IC that needs to be fixed.
IC is not tested with threads in anyway and it would be extreemly time
consuming and difficult to do so.

Considering that threaded perl and DBI is NOT recommended in the DBI
documentation it is not considered practicle to approach this from
within IC.

see http://search.cpan.org/~timb/DBI-1.47/DBI.pm#Threads_and_Thread_Safety

It is extreemly annoying that Linux vendors have decided to default to
threaded Perl when most serious perl programs use DBI and DBI is still
not recommended for use with threaded Perl.

The best course of action may be to start lobbying distributions to
revert to non-threaded Perl until such time as threaded Perl is
suitable for production systems. At that time the IC maintainers are
going to have a Real Bad Time (TM).

Jeff