Hi David,
On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 7:16 AM, David G <lsmb...@sbts.com.au> wrote:
> Hi Guys,
>
> Some musings here.
>
> Currently in Makefile.PL we use a method of installing perl dependencies
> that triggers cpan to do the actual work.
>
Yes.
Unfortunately if it is the first time cpan has been run (by that user)
> on that system it bothers the user with questions that may cause either
> confusion or lead to incorrect choices being made.
> This could result in the new modules being installed in the system perl
> instead of local perl libs which, at least on debian based systems, is
> considered a bad thing.
>
Yes.
> Even worse, after this first run, and installation of the needed
> modules. A Logout and Login is required before Makefile.PL will complete
> properly due to the Environment Variables needing to be correctly set.
> (yes you can just run "exec bash --login" to fix it for a specific
> terminal, but you need to do that for every terminal you may want to run
> LedgerSMB or it's associated tools in.
>
> cpanm on the other hand seems to *just work* as far as it asks the user
> no questions.
> Also it may not need the logout/in for the script to complete (not tested)
>
I created a completely empty and fresh Debian install and added the 'git',
'make', 'gcc' and 'cpanminus' (cpanm) packages to that. After cloning the
LedgerSMB repo the process was definitely not straight forward. I had to:
cpanm --install Module::Install
cpanm --installdeps .
Without separately installing Module::Install, cpanm can't transform our
Makefile.PL into a Makefile, because it's written using Module::Install
which isn't a Core module. cpanm doesn't know about this fact nor depends
on Module::Install itself, so that the module isn't on the system in
advance.
The next step (cpanm --installdeps .) fails on multiple counts:
* If 'make' or 'gcc' isn't installed, no warnings are shown (but
dependency installation fails)
* If the postgresql client/development libraries aren't installed, the
build fails
(I wasn't able to build DBD::Pg from CPAN; instead I installed the Debian
libbdb-pg-perl package to work around that)
* TeX::Encode won't test succesfully at all: it doesn't list the fact that
it wants Test::Pod::Coverage to be installed, which it needs to complete
testing succesfully
* In an attempt to get TeX::Encode to install correctly, I also installed
texlive; I'm not sure what would have happened if I hadn't done that.
I wonder if we should list Starman as required these days. If we do, then
we need a change to our Makefile.PL: it's listed as recommendation.
Because I didn't want to install everything into the system directories (I
want to have the opportunity to clear out all installed deps and start over
again), I also had to install and configure local::lib, which requires a
few additional steps to set up. (also complicating)
An alternative to both of these that has been suggested and may work
> well for us is Carton.
>
>From its description, it tries to solve a different problem: installation
of *exactly* the same dependencies in all environments. However, that's not
the same as listing correct requirements and downloading the latest of
those into your system. I don't think we should restrict requirements to
exactly one version; we haven't in the past and that has worked pretty well
for us.
If we want to make installation simple, I think we could have a script
which runs the right sequence of commands in order to pull the correct
dependencies into a local directory. e.g. installing Module::Install,
installing *without testing* TeX::Encode and from there, installing the
other dependencies through cpanm --installdeps. Maybe that script could try
to inspect the system for availability of required programs and libraries
in the various (default) paths, such as the libraries that DBD::Pg wants to
link against and the programs TeX::Encode wants to use -- and warn if those
are missing.
It doesn't feel to me like Carton will (ever) address that functionality.
> Carton is a manager that uses that cpanfile to install things locally
> (to a project) in a deployment-manageable way
> https://metacpan.org/pod/Carton and
> https://metacpan.org/pod/distribution/Carton/lib/Carton/Doc/FAQ.pod
>
> According to https://github.com/perl-carton/carton/issues/197
> you don't actually have to use "carton exec", it's just a convenient way
> to load only the local lib
>
> Does anyone have thought or experience with any of these that suggests
> any issues or benefits?
>
I'm thinking that most people are best off with a good list of instructions
and "cpanm --installdeps ." in the LedgerSMB directory, possibly in
combination with local::lib. What could help is if we provided clear
instructions on how to set up such an environment.
Hope this is an answer of the type you were looking for!
--
Bye,
Erik.
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