Hi David- my comments inline below -Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: David Christensen [mailto:dpchrist@[...].com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 6:37 AM
Matt Herdon wrote:
>  Frankly, the numbers don't currently add up for us to do this.

>  Which numbers are you referring to?

Revenue, customer demand, and cost.

>  Not least of which is the huge issue of effectively developing a 
>  variant of Perl that would work on .NET.  We've worked with Microsoft 
>  and developed of both PerlNET and PerlASPX as highly compatible ways 
>  of taking Perl code to .NET.
>  Ultimately, taking Perl truly to .NET would likely break compatibility 
>  with much of CPAN modules (the CLR and its security imposes 
>  requirements that prevent Perl from working naturally). Hence the most 
>  viable solution is probably to create a Perl-like language
>  (P#?) that breaks away from CPAN -- and consequently wouldn't actually 
>  be Perl any longer by most people's reckoning.

>  Have you tried talking to Perl people, such as Larry Wall, Randall
Schwartz, and Tom Christiansen?

We (meaning others more technically savvy than me!) have talked to lots of
people, but the numbers are ultimately what make this viable for a business
like ActiveState.

>  ActiveState could provide tools for such a language, but is not in the 
>  business of creating new languages.

>  ActiveState might want to consider getting involved, as you do have a
stake in the outcome.

Agreed, and we have, repeatedly, and would get involved if such a project
were spawned, but there is no way we can _drive_ this kind of work.

>  Combining the above two ideas, perhaps .NET compatibility could be a
feature of Perl 6.

Yup, it could.

>  In the meanwhile PerlNET is the best way to take Perl code to .NET, 
>  and it's part of the PDK. PDK is integrated with Visual Perl. Both 
>  hold compatibility with Perl to be most important.


David

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