Re: gp: anal.c more bugs

[Ilya Zakharevich <nospam-abuse@ilyaz.org>]

On Fri, May 21, 2004 at 10:33:11PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote:
> > > It does not seems important today because PARI is seldom used as a real
> > > library, but if we want people start to use it that way, we need to give
> > > them that sort of warranty.
> > 
> > To the contrary, I think that PARI is used as a real library 95% of
> > the time (via Math::Pari, which is a prerequisite for some Perl
> > modules for crypto).
> 
> Last time I build Math::PARI, it required to rebuild PARI entirely 
> and installed its own version
> (/usr/local/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Math/Pari/Pari.so)
> and so make no use of libpari.

This is a build option now.  And anyway, this is chicken and egg: when
the high-level stuff is available through an installed library, this
option has a chance to become a default.  Right now such a build is
very crippled.

> Also honestly, Math::BigInt (with GPM support) is a better option for
> perl crypto modules. Math::PARI can only be slower and more bloated
> (PARI being much more than a BigInt package).

I think that Math::Pari is about 3 orders of magnitude quickier that
Math::BigInt.  [However, what is a better option should be determined
not only by speed, but by other factors too.  Myself, I'm puzzled by
the fact that Math::Pari is made a prerequisite...]

Hope this helps,
Ilya