Need for Case-Sensitive File System?

Hi Friends,

I've been developing in Perl on OS X ever since the OS X Public=20
Beta. Somewhere along the line I came to believe that I should=20
set up my system with the boot drive formatted as Max OS=20
Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).

Emphasis here on "Case-sensitive".

My question is: Is this practice (still) needed?

Background
----------
I started doing this after some discussions on this list several=20
years ago; the issue was that some Perl modules assume(d)=20
file-system case-sensitivity. For example, here's a quote from a=20
message by Ari Kahn on Mar 8 2002:

"... difficulties when installing a software package that was=20
designed for a
case-sensitive system. For example, libwww-perl by default=20
installs an HTTP
script called HEAD, which is used to make an HTTP HEAD request.=20
If this is
installed to /usr/bin, it can overwrite the BSD built-in /usr/bin/head
command, used for reading the beginnings of files. To prevent=20
this kind of
collision when using HFS+, it's necessary to configure CPAN.pm=20
to install
modules to a private directory. "

I didn't choose the recommended solution at the time of always=20
installing CPAN modules in a private directory. Instead, every=20
time I formatted a new boot drive, I made it case-sensitive.

Over the years this has caused a few difficulties, particularly=20
with some commercial software such as Quark Xpress refusing to=20
install, but I only use case-sensitive formatting on my dev=20
machine, so it's not usually a problem.

I am about to set up a Mac Mini OS X 10.7 server as a new dev=20
machine, and am wondering whether I still need to re-format as=20
case-sensitive before proceeding. I'd like to avoid the=20
limitations of case-sensitivity if possible. If I format as=20
case-INsensitive, will CPAN now help me do the right thing?

Thanks.





    - Bruce

_bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz_ca_