Let's address the points one-by-one.

Database access is almost a must today

Is it? I beg to differ. For many jobs, database access is irrelevant. One of the areas Perl has been been used a lot, even before the web was something more than a handful of people cared about, is system administration. There, the typical job does *not* involve access to databases that are more sophisticated than flat ASCII files.

Besides, when the time comes that "databases access is a must", it'll be integrated in the OS. ;-).

Perl is a high level language

Not more than C, C ++, Pascal, LISP, or ALGOL. And they do fine without database support in their "core".

We have great modules like DBI and DBD.

Yes, and? There are more great modules on CPAN. They aren't included in the core either.

"Greatness" or "usefulness" is not a sufficient criterium for a module to be put in the core. The more modules you put in the core, the harder it is to maintain the core, and the slower perl development goes.

The perl core is already bloated with modules that do not have a place in the core - and that should not be taken as a reason to bloat it even more. IMO (and others shared that as well), modules should only be put in the core if they fit one or more of the following criteriums:

1. They are tighted to the core, or a core feature, and are hence often version specific (for instance B::*, pragmes, IO::*).
2. They are needed to build, test or install Perl (for instance, Test::*, ExtUtils::*).
3. They are needed to fetch, build, test, or install external modules (for instance CPAN, MakeMaker, AutoLoader, SelfLoader).

The rest of the modules does not belong in the core. They are not needed.

Abigail

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