Past and presence of PerlEx and PerlIS

What's the difference between PerlEx 3.0 and PerlIS? Or have they been
merged?

Been poking through the archive of the now defunct PerlEx mailing list
to find out what has become of the product and why it does not seem to
have caught on. Guessing that most companies have simply moved to Linux,
or rather have stayed there and never left Linux.

http://code.activestate.com/lists/perlex/737/

http://code.activestate.com/lists/perlex/744/

Do the statements expressed in these messages still apply?

In particular, from message 737: "ActiveState will replace the existing
PerlIS in ActivePerl 5.8 with a modified version of PerlEx." Has this
happened and is it what we're seeing now in an ActivePerl distribution?

What kind of support is available for PerlEx, PerlScript or PerlIS?

--
Michael Ludwig
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RE: Past and presence of PerlEx and PerlIS

On Tue, 10 Aug 2010, Michael Ludwig wrote:
>
> What's the difference between PerlEx 3.0 and PerlIS? Or have they been
> merged?

No, the merge never happened. PerlEx is however still part of ActivePerl
and has not been dropped from the 5.10 or 5.12 builds.

The difference between PerlIS and PerlEx is that the latter is doing
script caching (keeping an already compiled script in memory and use
it to service multiple requests, similar to mod_perl for Apache) while
the former does not. PerlIS will create a new interpreter for each
request.

So PerlIS is somewhere in the middle between using perl.exe for CGI and
PerlEx: it saves the process startup cost of perl.exe because it runs
as an ISAPI plugin inside the thread pool, but it still has the interpreter
startup/teardown cost for each request.

Therefore PerlIS is somewhat more robust because the scripts don't have
to be written in a way that makes them cachable.

> Been poking through the archive of the now defunct PerlEx mailing list
> to find out what has become of the product and why it does not seem to
> have caught on. Guessing that most companies have simply moved to Linux,
> or rather have stayed there and never left Linux.
>
> http://code.activestate.com/lists/perlex/737/
>
> http://code.activestate.com/lists/perlex/744/
>
> Do the statements expressed in these messages still apply?
>
> In particular, from message 737: "ActiveState will replace the existing
> PerlIS in ActivePerl 5.8 with a modified version of PerlEx." Has this
> happened and is it what we're seeing now in an ActivePerl distribution?

No, it hasn't happened, and there are currently no plans to do so.

> What kind of support is available for PerlEx, PerlScript or PerlIS?

PerlScript and PerlIS are supported for companies with ActivePerl Enterprise
support contracts. PerlEx is just provided as-is. Bug reports and
requests to support@activestate.com will be handled (or not) depending
on the effort required.

Cheers,
-Jan

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RE: Past and presence of PerlEx and PerlIS

> -----Original Message-----
> From: activeperl-bounces@listserv.ActiveState.com
> On Behalf Of Jan Dubois

> On Tue, 10 Aug 2010, Michael Ludwig wrote:
> >
> > What's the difference between PerlEx 3.0 and PerlIS? Or have they
> > been merged?
>
> No, the merge never happened. PerlEx is however still part of
> ActivePerl and has not been dropped from the 5.10 or 5.12 builds.
>
> The difference between PerlIS and PerlEx is that the latter is doing
> script caching (keeping an already compiled script in memory and use
> it to service multiple requests, similar to mod_perl for Apache) while
> the former does not. PerlIS will create a new interpreter for each
> request.
>
> So PerlIS is somewhere in the middle between using perl.exe for CGI
> and PerlEx: it saves the process startup cost of perl.exe because it
> runs as an ISAPI plugin inside the thread pool, but it still has the
> interpreter startup/teardown cost for each request.
>
> Therefore PerlIS is somewhat more robust because the scripts don't
> have to be written in a way that makes them cachable.

Precisely what I needed to know! Thanks a lot!

> > http://code.activestate.com/lists/perlex/737/

> > In particular, from message 737: "ActiveState will replace the
> > existing PerlIS in ActivePerl 5.8 with a modified version of
> > PerlEx." Has this happened and is it what we're seeing now in an
> > ActivePerl distribution?
>
> No, it hasn't happened, and there are currently no plans to do so.

Good. This has clarified things to me. Thanks!

> > What kind of support is available for PerlEx, PerlScript or PerlIS?
>
> PerlScript and PerlIS are supported for companies with ActivePerl
> Enterprise support contracts. PerlEx is just provided as-is. Bug
> reports and requests to support@activestate.com will be handled (or
> not) depending on the effort required.

Also thanks - good to know! There might be a page somewhere pointing
out this information, but I haven't been able to locate it.

Best,
--
Michael Ludwig
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