demerphq wrote:
My understanding of this (and i hope im not putting words in Adams mouth) is that anybody using an old CPAN can't install a distribution that requires Module::Build unless a Makefile.PL is present. Since this is a big chunk of the cpan's out there it affects a lot of users, and in my experience is one of the reasons that people often get a bad impression of MB on their first exposure as there is a good chance that the first time they notice something uses MB will be when CPAN fails to install because of the missing Makefile.pl
Let's be clear about the scope of responsibilities here. Every time you start an install using a backrev'd CPAN, you are given instructions for updating CPAN itself. The current CPAN handles MB just fine, thanks, so the core problem is sysadmins who refuse to upgrade their basic tools. If this reflects badly on M::B it is due to sloth and inertia, and that isn't something that adding a Makefile.PL is going to automatically fix.
Of course, there is also the far superior CPANPLUS, which deals with M::B even better...
IOW, no dist should ever be released to CPAN without a Makefile.PL and MB should not allow anyone to create such a dist. There is no need to make the Makefile.PL do any more than signal that MB needs to be installed and then hand over to it to do the dirty work. Such an implementation should work transparently on every CPAN ever released.
And who acts as gatekeeper? PAUSE? Module::Build itself??? This goes completely against the nature of CPAN, which is to accept all sorts of crap, with the good stuff eventually floating to the top (by being on a 'use' line in every other module).
I would certainly accept a mandatory warning during './Build dist' if there was no Makefile.PL present, but I think that assuming that everyone wants to release to CPAN is grossly inappropriate. I personally have released modules to CPAN lacking a Makefile.PL, but mostly because I forgot to add one (and since I now try to use Module::Starter::PBP, that isn't going to happen again). I strongly support any author who wants to include only a Build.PL because they don't care if people who refuse to upgrade their core modules get burned. ;-)
John -- John Peacock Director of Information Research and Technology Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group 4501 Forbes Boulevard Suite H Lanham, MD 20706 301-459-3366 x.5010 fax 301-429-5748
