Re: [Module-build-general] MakeMaker Is DOOMED!

[Ken Williams]

On Sunday, February 16, 2003, at 01:35  PM, Brian Ingerson wrote:

I went to the talk. It got me to thinking about CPAN::MakeMaker and its
relationship to Module::Build.

Given:

    The goal of CP::MM is to allow authors to write very simple/clean
    Makefile.PLs that can potentially "turn on" very powerful features
    like "bundling" with the flick of a switch.

    The Makefile.PL produces a Makefile.

Then:

    There is no reason why CP::MM can't produce a Makefile that wraps
    Module::Build!

I'm not sure that's ideal, because it still requires 'make' to orchestrate at least some of the process. One of the hairiest parts of Module::Build is the tiny little pass-through Makefile in Module::Build::Compat, because it has to work in all kinds of different environments. I've just made a bunch of changes that let it work on Windows, but there are still a bunch of things missing, like translating MM command-line options to M::B options

    If the author has a version of Module::Build on there system that
    is sufficient to handle the options that the author has requested
    of CPAN::MakeMaker, then CP::MM will (optionally??) bundle M::B
    into the author's dist. After that nobody is the wiser. Everything
    just works.

I wouldn't want lots of installation tools bundled into all my distributions, though. I still think it's far better to have a powerful system for listing dependencies in as fine-grained and accessible a manner as is necessary, and let the user choose their favorite policies and tools for fulfilling those dependencies.

-Ken