What is it you are hoping to do with perl2exe that you can't do by simply giving someone else the source code and pointing them at http://www.activestate.com?

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

The idea is to have perl executables that I can use with Ant to abstract the direct usage of perl away from those unfamilar with it. I've been doing this successfully for 9 months now and people are happy with the system. -P0w3rK!d

Ya know, when they first implemented the "horseless carriage", they put a horse's head on the front of the car so as not to scare the other horses.

I thought that was rather silly too.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

update

I'm not entirely surprised that I'm getting negative XP for this post. After all, I hold a pretty idealistic point of view that tools like perl2exe do more harm than good.

But I believe that people who try to lock up Perl source are spitting in the face of the people who brought Perl to them in the first place.

So shoot me.

What is it you are hoping to do with perl2exe that you can't do by simply giving someone else the source code and pointing them at http://www.activestate.com?

You really don't see the difference, do you?

For end users, especially on Windows, it is not the same thing!

It does not involve the same ease of use to (perl2exe) copy the file and double click it; and (source + perl) unzip the source tree, download Perl, install Perl, double click the file.

For you and me this is trivial. But we're not users, we're programmers. We are not the audience! But, hey, even I don't want to bother with that if I'm gonna do it on forty machines.

That is what perl2exe and PerlApp are for. Simple distribution to ordinary people who just want to use our great programs to make their lives easier instead of more complicated.

/J

I've recently been playing with ActiveState's Perl Dev Kit which includes PerlApp for making executables. I'm pretty happy with it so far. It runs on Windows, Linux, Solaris and HP-UX. Unfortunately my evaluation period is almost over. I may do the educational license thing ($49 USD). User licenses are $295, though. Ouch.

Ionizer, the PDK user license is $195.

And in response to merlyn's question, I've run into scenario's where my end-user is skittish about installing a Perl distribution on their system (and I'm skittish about learning VB). So as a solution I commonly use PerlApp or PerlCtrl to create stand-alone .exe's or .dll's that I can provide to them.

-Nitrox

I blame my spastic fingers for that one. I thought I typed a 1 but apparently I didn't. My "ouch" still stands, however - I can't justify spending that on development tools that I may or may end up using heavily because programming is something I do mostly for my own entertainment at this point.

Thanks. :)

I will look into this as I am using Windows(NT,2000,XP), Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, and Netware. The more platforms it supports..the better.
-P0w3rK!d

Thanks for the info :)
I am evaluating it now. My current client will flit the bill for the license :>

-P0w3rK!d
P.S. Don't tell merlyn you're using a Perl compiler or he may send the UN Inspection team after you! lol

My client requested it :/ They were afraid the script would get served to the users of the system accidentally.

Update: If you downvote my nodes, please tell me why. I don't know what you found wrong with this node and if you don't tell me, I can't avoid doing the same thing in future.

I agree. As you can see from my replies, I have n number of platforms and n number of systems to work with. I really don't see the sense in updating 2n machines with new versions of Perl and other happy bs, when I can build several executables that everyone can reference.

Furthermore, most of them have no clue about Perl (they think Perl comes from oysters), ..or only enough to be dangerous.
-P0w3rK!d

I haven't tried it, though.
--
Mike