in reply to "Best practice" instructions for installing modules

Usually instructions on how to install a module are given in INSTALL or README.

If you use Dist::Zilla to build your distribution, and include Dist::Zilla::Plugin::InstallGuide's [InstallGuide] directive in your dist.ini, it will create an INSTALL file automagically, the contents of which look as shown below. Note that you can easily make your own version of such a plugin to customize the instructions.

This is the Perl distribution CMS-Drupal.

Installing CMS-Drupal is straightforward.

## Installation with cpanm

If you have cpanm, you only need one line:

    % cpanm CMS::Drupal

If you are installing into a system-wide directory, you may need to pa
+ss the
"-S" flag to cpanm, which uses sudo to install the module:

    % cpanm -S CMS::Drupal

## Installing with the CPAN shell

Alternatively, if your CPAN shell is set up, you should just be able t
+o do:

    % cpan CMS::Drupal

## Manual installation

As a last resort, you can manually install it. Download the tarball, u
+ntar it,
then build it:

    % perl Makefile.PL
    % make && make test

Then install it:

    % make install

If you are installing into a system-wide directory, you may need to ru
+n:

    % sudo make install

## Documentation

CMS-Drupal documentation is available as POD.
You can run perldoc from a shell to read the documentation:

    % perldoc CMS::Drupal

[download]
The way forward always starts with a minimal test.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: "Best practice" instructions for installing modules
by mgv (Sexton) on Aug 24, 2015 at 14:58 UTC

    Thanks for mentioning this module, I haven't heard of it. The README/INSTALL file is not relevant in my situation (as potential users are unlikely to see/read it).

    The instructions you pasted look insufficient for newbies. For example, don't you need to set up local::lib before/when installing with cpanm (without -S) or cpan as non-root?

    At this point I think I'd just suggest sudo cpan App::MyProgram, as it seems to be the most frictionless way to install a module (since the CPAN shell is usually already installed, as tye pointed out below). This however isn't enough for Windows users (for whom I should provide a link to Strawberry Perl) and users who don't have root access.

    Any opinions on the usefulness of the website I described in the second part of my article?

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