Re: [Module-build-general] A better passthrough Makefile.PL

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

On Friday, November 1, 2002, at 01:22  AM, Dave Rolsky wrote:

> On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Ken Williams wrote:
>
>> I've been ruminating on this, and I think what I want to do is put 
>> hooks
>> into M::B that will use EU::AI if it's installed (and if the user wants
>> auto-installation), but that EU::AI should remain the way to
>> automatically install modules.  M::B should use EU::AI, not Borg its
>> code.  Obviously this is better from a separation-of-labor & modularity
>> point of view, and I think it feels better from a policy point of view
>> too.
>>
>> EU::AI can be a recommended dependency for M::B then.
>
> But some of what EU::AI just makes sense for M::B.  M::B already breaks 
> up
> dependencies in a more fine-grained way the EU::MM, so why not go a step
> further and do what EU::AI does, and offer a break not only by
> build/test/run but also by feature.  This is just generically useful.

Oh, maybe I don't understand what EU::AI is for.  I'll download and 
investigate.

> I also like the idea of being able to specify that _specific tests_
> have a dependency, so M::B can just skip them if that dependency is not
> satisfied.

Specific tests can already be skipped by various criteria, but that 
happens inside the test by emitting specific Test::Harness stuff rather 
than being controlled by the builder.

> In other words, I think have a very full-featured dependency handling
> feature is an important goal for M::B.  Auto-installing of modules is 
> not
> what I was aiming at.  M::B should cooperate with CPAN and CPANPLUS in
> this regard (or use EU::AI, etc.)

Agreed on the last part - I'll read more about EU::AI.

>> A very related problem is the idea of alternative dependencies - for
>> instance, Crypt::SKey needs either Digest::MD4 or Digest::MD5, but
>> there's no great way to indicate that with M::B's dependency
>> specification right now.
>
> Good thing to add.  I wonder if the current way of doing this as a hash 
> of
> "module name => version spec" is too inflexible?
>
> I almost wonder if supporting a mini-language might be best.  We already
> have the beginning with the version spec, so maybe something like:
>
>  'Foo::Bar >= 2, <= 3.5 | Foo::Baz == 2.1'

I wonder too.   Hmmmm.  I'm not too thrilled with that particular 
syntax, I've seen something somewhat better in Fink (which I guess is 
probably taken from debian's stuff).

  -Ken