[ic] Perl, debian packages, and the usual issues.

Cameron G ritontor at icenet.com.au
Wed Jan 19 22:39:17 EST 2005


> -----Original Message-----
> From: interchange-users-bounces at icdevgroup.org 
> [mailto:interchange-users-bounces at icdevgroup.org] On Behalf 
> Of Jeff Fearn
> Sent: Thursday, 20 January 2005 7:39 AM
> To: interchange-users at icdevgroup.org
> Subject: Re: [ic] Perl, debian packages, and the usual issues.
> 
> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 10:31:43 +0000, Jamie Neil 
> <jamie at versado.net> wrote:
> > Cameron G wrote:
> >
> > What I don't understand is why this separate Perl 
> workaround is still 
> > necessary. It seems that the problem with IC and threaded 
> Perl is not 
> > Perl itself but the DBI or DBD::mysql modules. Now DBI is (AFAIK) a 
> > very widely used Perl module, and MySQL is the most popular 
> database 
> > out there, so now that almost every current Linux 
> distribution ships 
> > with a threaded Perl, why has this issue not been fixed? Is 
> > Interchange the _only_ application out there that has issues with 
> > threaded Perl? Surely if the problem lies in the DBI 
> modules then many 
> > other applications would be affected?
> 
> >From the docs for DBI 1.46 (November 2004): "Using DBI with perl
> threads is not yet recommended for production environments."
> 
> It appears that DBI is thread safe, but that some DBD modules 
> are the problem.
> 
> http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/perl-DBI-Dev/2241844
> 
> DBD:mysql thread safety depends on the way the C libs are compiled.
> 
> http://search.cpan.org/~rudy/DBD-mysql-2.9004/lib/DBD/mysql.pm
> #MULTITHREADING
> 
> The question seems to be how many DBD modules are thread safe 
> and what conditions need to be met to enable this behaviour 
> in each DBD module.
> 
> I'm thinking that writing an installer to check all that out 
> would be ... very challenging.
> 
> Jeff

Which is why I think we should just bite the bullet, accept that we need a
non-threaded perl, and work out the easiest possible way to make this happen
for people who want to run IC. I mean, it's easy enough for "us", but what
about the average joe off the street with very little admin experience, or
even worse, trying to get it going in a minimally supported hosting
environment? 

By the way, I still haven't worked out what you need to change in order to
get an installed IC working with a different perl, and even if I do do this,
I'm pretty certain it's going to break come apt-get update time ;)




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