Re: [Module-build-general] ANNOUNCE: CPAN-MakeMaker-0.10

[Ken W. <ke...@ma...>]

On Sunday, October 27, 2002, at 11:20  PM, Dave Rolsky wrote:

> On Sun, 27 Oct 2002, Brian Ingerson wrote:
>
>> FYI. (NOTE: Even though this seems like a competitive module, I
>> really think that Module::Build and CPAN::MakeMaker are somewhat
>> orthoganal. I'm looking forward to working together. There is a good
>> chance that these modules could nicely complement each other. Let the
>> thinking begin :)
>
> I like that self-instaling feature.  I wonder if we could/should
> incorporate that for Module::Build.

I'm generally against "auto-installing" things.  I was going to ask what 
mechanism CPAN::MakeMaker actually uses to "just work", since I can 
think of at least three:

  1) viral: it auto-installs itself on the host system

  2) catalyst: it doesn't need to be installed, it just needs to be 
present when installing.

  3) stealth: it isn't even present in the tarballs that use it, it just 
inserts/changes a bunch of code in the tarballs so they can do what they 
need to do

I'm against doing #1 for M::B.  #2 is fine in principal, as long as 
newer versions on the system would still be honored.  #3 is kind of 
yucky.

> Maybe we could offer a 'Build uberdist' feature or something that would
> simply incorporate all of the M::B files into the tarball.  As long as
> they end up untarring into the top-level of the distro (./Module,
> ./Module/Base.pm, etc) it'd just work.
>
> This could even be the default for Module::Build.

I'm not crazy about the idea that using M::B would bloat your 
distribution with its own by default.  In my mind this is better solved 
by getting dependency relationships that express the situation 
correctly, then letting the user (or automated system) resolve those 
dependencies.  That leaves you with a better dependency map too.

  -Ken