T-PROT AND SUPPORT FOR GETOPT::LONG
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Most distributions (it seems to me) are quite eager to abandon Getopt::Mixed,
having Getopt::Long in the official Perl package, which does everything the
former module did. Getopt::Mixed is unmaintained and marked deprecated by
its author, so why keep it?

The answer is simple: because it's much faster (GNU time(1) tells me 28%
faster for running my complete t-prot release test suite consisting of
real-life emails) than anything I could get out of Getopt::Long. Plus,
from my point of view, there are no problems having a package installed
that is well-tested and just works fine (you don't need updates and more
new shiny features if the software just does what you want it to do).

So we have the choice between easy maintainance and better performance.


For the time being, I made my choice and keep sticking to Getopt::Mixed as
long as it works as-is with current stable perl versions. That does not mean
I don't see the merits of a well-maintained standard module, which is already
available on any perl system out there. Thus, a patch is provided to allow
easy migration to Getopt::Long for anyone who likes this better. I hope
this solution is fine for everyone.