I use packages to manage all of my software, and that includes the perl programs I maintain. This doesn't magically let you have different development and production environments, but it does allow you to replicate your dev env with minimal pain (imho).

My testing and production environments are updated using red carpet, although other solutions could be used instead (using apt, for example). On my development environment, though, I use the software I maintain unpackaged (but I use packages for its dependencies). So the only real difference is that in the dev env's @INC needs to include my development modules. I accomplish this with a little hack:

use FindBin;
use lib "$FindBin::RealBin/../lib";
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That means that @INC will include prefix/lib (e.g., /usr/lib) on a production system. If that's a problem, then you can comment out those lines before packaging the software for production use.

This solution is more or less limited (in practice, not in nature), to systems with solid package management that can do dependency resolution. Meaning, if you plan to deploy software on e.g., Windows, then you'll need an additional package management layer, or a different solution.

I'd be very interested in any comments, suggestions, or other working solutions other people might have!