[yapc] YAPC::NA Hackathon leads to Vanilla Perl Build 4

[David Golden]

[ As posted to http://use.perl.org/~dagolden/journal/ ]

I'm pleased to announce the arrival of Vanilla Perl Build 4.

At YAPC::NA, Alias challenged me to have a new release of Vanilla Perl 
and an alpha release of Strawberry Perl out on Thursday during the 
hackathon. Of course, when he said Thursday, he didn't realize that 
would be Thursday of this week. The installer can be downloaded from 
vanillaperl.com.

This work builds on the excellent results of the original vertical metre 
of beer challenge and subsequent bug-squashing as chronicled at 
win32.perl.org.

The biggest change during the hackathon was automating the process of 
building a Vanilla Perl. This is now available on CPAN as 
Perl::Dist::Vanilla. While more refactoring is necessary, this is the 
first step towards creating a general tool for the creation of custom 
executable installers for Win32. For more changes in Build 4, see the 
Changes file.

Here's more about the project from vanillaperl.com:

~~~

Vanilla Perl Project

The Vanilla Perl Project is a experiment to provide binary Perl 
distributions for the Microsoft Windows platform that include a bundled 
compiler. Bundling a compiler provides the ability to install XS CPAN 
modules directly from CPAN, making the Win32 Perl development more akin 
to Unix perl development.

Vanilla Perl Series

The Vanilla Perl series provides a Perl 5.8.8 distribution that is as 
close to to the Perl core as possible, with a small set of upgraded 
versions of dual CPAN/core modules that have win32-specific fixes.

Vanilla Perl is experimental and is not intended for production 
purposes. It is targeted to master-level Win32 Perl developers and those 
who wish to experiment with building their own custom Win32 Perl 
distributions. Vanilla Perl releases are numbered only as sequential 
'builds' and will not follow any alpha/beta/release plan.

~~~

I'm continuing work on Strawberry Perl and have high hopes to have a 
release later this week. Allison and the TPF are also conducting a 
license review to confirm that it can indeed be released under the same 
terms as Perl. Stay tuned for more win32 Perl...

Regards,
David