Saving locks after we set it to 0 was kind of pointless.

[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / INSTALL

diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL
index 946fb68..da0c726 100644 (file)
--- a/INSTALL
+++ b/INSTALL
@@ -806,18 +806,23 @@ and the long double support.
 
 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
 
-Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
-stdio.h.  Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allowed alternate IO
-mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
-the default and is the only supported mechanism.
+Executive summary: in Perl 5.8 you should use the default "PerlIO"
+as the IO mechanism unless you have a good reason not to.
+
+In more detail: previous versions of perl used the standard IO
+mechanisms as defined in stdio.h.  Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl
+introuced alternate IO mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but up
+until and including Perl 5.6 stdio mechanism was still the default and
+the only supported mechanism.
 
 Starting from Perl 5.8 the default mechanism is to use the PerlIO
 abstraction, because it allows better control of I/O mechanisms,
 instead of having to work with (often, work around) vendors' I/O
 implementations.
 
-This PerlIO abstraction can be disabled either on the Configure
-command line with
+This PerlIO abstraction can be disabled (but again, unless you know
+what you are doing, should not) either on the Configure command line
+with
 
        sh Configure -Uuseperlio
 
@@ -1920,10 +1925,12 @@ external program.
 
 Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
 sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
-If your system is quite busy and doesn't return quickly enough,
-these tests might fail.  If possible, try running the tests again with
-the system under a lighter load.  These tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
-F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, and F<lib/Benchmark.t>.
+If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
+these tests might fail.  If possible, try running the tests again
+with the system under a lighter load.  These timing-sensitive
+and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
+F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
+F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
 
 =item Out of memory
 
@@ -2094,6 +2101,9 @@ approach.
 
 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
 
+Perl 5.8 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
+In other words, you have to recompile your XS modules.
+
 In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
 5.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
 all of your add-on extensions.  You can also safely leave the old version
@@ -2281,7 +2291,7 @@ operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
 
 Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
 especially the Encode with its big conversion tables consumes a lot of
-space.  On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything, espcially
+space.  On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything, especially
 the Fcntl module is pretty essential.  If you need to do network
 programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
 depends on what do you need to do.