There's no evidence that ActiveState is purposedly trying to make ActivePython better by making ActivePerl worse. They are generally good people trying to do a good job, just like a lot of us. Just because you probably can't put a face or name along with the corporate name doesn't excuse unfounded accusations or name-calling.
Ouch! I now regret so much having chosen the word "racism", albeit clearly in double quotes: for I did not intend to claim that "ActiveState is purposedly trying to make ActivePython better by making ActivePerl worse" nor was my comment aimed at being either an accusation or name-calling. I am aware that this may be hard to believe, since to my surprise it seems that quite about everybody here understood my post the same way you did.
OTOH I do recognize that they're trying to do a good job and I do appreciate their efforts, for one thing amongst the others, because they provide me with a pleasant and useful tool/environment, when I'm under Win, that is, for otherwise I use my Linux distro's package. FWIW I even advocated ActivePerl to some of my friends.
Anyway, the ActivePerl FAQ you pointed me to contains explanations about how to set PATHEXT suitably, but does not explain why it is not set up by the installation program itself. Granted, I don't consider such a big hassle doing so myself: indeed for simple enough software packages I'm the kind of guy who prefers manually installing them than using the automated installer, even if available, and to tweak installations, if possible. As far as (Active)Perl is concerned, I also set up an association for wperl.exe and put the corresponding extension in PATHEXT as well. However I still wonder why there's this tiny difference between the installation procedures for respectively ActivePerl and ActivePython, which IMHO are perfectly comparable products.
