On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:28:08 -0800 (PST)
"Jeremy C. Reed" <reed@reedmedia.net> wrote:
> FreeBSD since 5.0 does not ship with perl. They were maintaining it both 
> in the ports and in base. It continues to be in the ports collection (or 
> as a binary package). Like in NetBSD, admins can add perl if needed.

Thanks for the update.  After reading through the arguments they went
through, I can certainly see why we wouldn't want to have perl, python,
or ruby in the base system. 

I still wonder if they could be uses for a light interpreted language
such as the versions of scheme that we've been discussing.  Could the
apparently failed sushi have benefited from a higher level language?
I'm not sure why it was removed from base after 3.0, but prior
experience suggests that it was just too buggy to be useful. I wonder
if some of this came from having to track changes in the format of the
configuration files/scripts that it was modifying/running.  Perhaps
creating a stable user interface engine in C with interpreted code to
handle the system configuration interactions would allow developers to
adapt it faster to changing needs? 

I'd like to help make NetBSD easier to use, so if there is interest in
reviving sushi or creating something like it (that actually works), I'd
be willing to try coding it. (Although my time is somewhat limited by
being a graduate student, I'd like something different to code between things.)

Thanks, 

Jeffrey