I think I dropped Strawberry after trying to install DBI + DBD::mysql on Windows 7 (which is a no brainer in Activeperl, just click on the ppms and choose install).īut maybe that's solved by now. Even for the windows version of the Apache http server, there is a precompiled mod_perl (2.0.4) ppm available which will (did for me) work out of the box with Activeperl 5. This was for me, in the long run, a much better (and more robust) choice. The ppm-Installer included in Activeperl allows you to add alternative ppm repositories which will give you access to almost all useful perl modules available on CPAN - but prepared and tested for windows. They were necessary before the community got together and built Strawberry to bring Windows into the "first world" of the Perl ecosystem, but they're not necessary anymore.Īfter having used both for years, I'd say, for me at least, Activeperl is a much more convenient choice. I appreciate what ActiveState is trying to do, but I think it's a bottleneck in the development process. Strawberry / CPAN mitigating factor: The Strawberry devs try really, really hard to make sure that everything goes smoothly and that as much of CPAN as possible is available to you, and when modules are identified as trouble spots (difficult to build on Windows, but required for other popular modules/apps), they'll either work with the author to get the module fixed so that everyone can install it, or in exceptional cases, apply their own fixups and bundle the module with Strawberry or Strawberry Professional. Strawberry / CPAN cons: Not everything is guaranteed to build perfectly with the Windows tools. You have new modules the moment the author releases them, and you're using the build system that the author intended. Strawberry / CPAN pros: Your repository is CPAN, not a bunch of binaries maintained by third-parties. You also get access to CPAN.Īmplifying just a tiny bit on Vivin Paliath's helpful answer:ĪcitveState / PPM pros: If there's a PPM for your version, it's going to work, and simply.ĪctiveState / PPM cons: There's not always a PPM, or at least not always an up-to-date one. I have done that before and it works reasonably well. On the other hand, ActivePerl is made for Windows and so it works with Windows very well.Īnother option is to install Cygwin and Perl that comes with Cygwin. But I lean towards Strawberry Perl because the environment is closer to Unix and so there are not many incompatibilities. I have used both before and it seemed to work for most cases. Although easier to install than CPAN modules, PPMs are specifically created for Windows and so some CPAN modules will not work (because they do Unix-specific things). You can find PPMs for most of the popular modules so you shouldn't have any trouble unless you are looking for an obscure or really new package (so bleeding-edge stuff won't work because PPM usually lags behind CPAN). The official repository is hosted by ActiveState. I think Strawberry Perl also comes with a few modules that let you install PPMs (Perl Package Manager files).ĪctivePerl installs modules using its own format called PPM (Perl Package Manager). The MinGW distribution comes with gcc, make, ld and other tools to help you build modules. Strawberry Perl also comes with MinGW which means that Strawberry Perl can use quite a few XS modules directly from CPAN without any modification. When things are added to CPAN, you have immediate access to them. Strawberry Perl uses CPAN, which means that you are up to date as far as modules are concerned. And I have to say one should just learn Perl - it's a very beautiful language. Strawberry is at least as great if not greater. It was super-easy for me to get started with Perl language while I was on vacation when I wasn't always online. I ended up going with ActivePerl simply because it comes with offline documentation (in HTML) - a great life-savior for those who are on the road or just not always connected. I actually liked both which is a good thing! One can't go wrong with either of these. And I wonder what should I pick to get started? If I pick one how hard is it to migrate to the other?Įdit: I gave both distributions a run for a couple of weeks. There's a clear trade-off between those two. It also says that ActivePerl has a lot of prepackaged modules which are easier to install with PPM. Wikipedia says that Strawberry comes with additional dev tools to compile CPAN modules if necessary. I read about two rival distributions available for Windows platform (I guess there's just Perl on other OSes :). I'm totally new to Perl but I'd like to try it out.
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