ActivePerl vs. Camelbox?

[jbenjam]

Greetings,

I'm a linux perl user: command line to run, emacs for editing.

I am now developing a Perl OpenGL application using POGL, which I want
to run on both Windows and linux.

Now I'm faced with the task of getting Perl running on Windows XP.
I've been able to successfully install ActivePerl and am able to run
some examples without problem. Then I found out about Camelbox.

My question is: Why should I bother to take the time to use Camelbox
instead of ActivePerl? Don't they essentially have the same
purpose?

I like the fact that CB is (evidently) completely open source, other
than that, I don't feel particularly compelled to spend the hour or so
to get it installed, running, packages installed, etc. Your thoughts
are appreciated.

I realize this question may be touchy to some people. My tone is
intended to be purely inquisitive, not inflammatory.

Thanks,

-Ben

[Brian Manning]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 2:28 AM, jbenjam <jbe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am now developing a Perl OpenGL application using POGL, which I want
> to run on both Windows and linux.

[snip]

> My question is: Why should I bother to take the time to use Camelbox
> instead of ActivePerl?   Don't they essentially have the same
> purpose?

Yes and no. They're both copies of Perl for Windows, but Camebox
includes a lot of the GTK C libraries and Perl modules; it's the 'box'
in Camelbox. ActiveState does have some ASAPI stuff for IIS that's
not open source, so Camelbox doesn't have those libraries.

To make things even more complicated, you do know about Strawberry
Perl, correct? It has a lot of support from the core Perl
developers.

> I like the fact that CB is (evidently) completely open source, other
> than that, I don't feel particularly compelled to spend the hour or so
> to get it installed, running, packages installed, etc.   Your thoughts
> are appreciated.

If you're not familiar with compiling code on Windows, I'd say stick
to ActiveState, as the POGL people are providing the necessary PPM's
for you.

That being said, if you want any other Perl modules installed that
have XS code that ActiveState doesn't have a PPM for, you'll be
needing a compiler, as well as the knowledge on how to compile
software using your compiler, and then you *will* be installing lots
of things from source to satisfy dependency requirements.

A lot of these things (example: a compiler for XS modules, and MySQL
and PostgreSQL database C libraries, which means DBI/DBD support) come
with Camelbox out of the box so to speak. Compiling C libraries under
Camelbox is not very straighforward like it is on *NIX, but once you
get used to the process it gets easier.

As far as support goes, I guess you can ask questions on the
ActiveState mailing list, or pay for support, for Camelbox questions,
you ask them here on this list.

Does that answer your question?

Thanks,

Brian

[jbenjam]

On Apr 13, 1:07 pm, Brian Manning <elspicyj...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 2:28 AM, jbenjam <jben...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am now developing a Perl OpenGL application using POGL, which I want
> > to run on both Windows and linux.

[snip]

> Does that answer your question?

Thanks for the very helpful information, Brian. It does answer my
question(s).

Since I'm going to use POGL heavily (and have learned PDL today), I'll
just stick to ActivePerl. Their package manager is a bit doofy, but
they've got all of the packages that I think I need so far.

It's not clear to me what "Strawberry Perl" is and how it's different
from the upcoming(?) "Chocolate Perl" (or is that a joke?) ... I don't
really care at this point, I just need a workable Perl distribution in
Windows. I don't need GTK stuff at all right now... I may later.

As I see it, improving the state of Perl on Windows is "good for
everyone". I get the feeling that's an incredible amount of hard work
going on "behind the scenes" to get a Windows Perl distribution
working to everyone's reasonable satisfaction. As a "beginning" user,
I appreciate all of the effort that goes into projects like this
(whether I use it or not).

Cheers,
-Ben

[deadpickle]

I have messed with all of these and have found camelbox the easiest to
handle. I really dont have much proof in the form of technical jargon
but I have tried them. Strawberry as just strange feeling and wasnt
that user friendly out of box, though that may have changed in the
previous years. Atcivestate Perl was nice. It had a package manager
which is useful. But It never really liked Gtk2. Which is a must in my
opinion. Camelbox is the only one I know of that has Gtk2 included, as
well as the all powerful Goo Canvas, which tended to be a pain to
manually install. Though the truth is that Camelbox has trouble with
some packages like XML::LibXML(::Common) and GD. Though you can get
around that by installing the PPM perl module. This module is
escentally Activestate so it also allows you to install things like GD
which are prebuilt perl modules without having to deal with
Activestate. That is just my two cents.