Re: Distributing or Sharing Perl Scripts

The trusted solution is to use PerlApp or perl2exe.

The freestanding option of PerlApp works wonderfully for letting my coworkers use the many, many useful scripts Perl let me create for myself. PerlApp and perl2exe cost dineros though, and you said that wasn't an option. However, I think both have 30 days trial, so if you can show your boss how well it works, and how useful your stuff is, maybe...

Use PAR if you can get it to work. I've heard it was a little trouble getting it to work properly on Windows, but that may have been solved by now, so it's probably worth an hour to experiment with it.

If there's data files and stuff, package it with e.g. Inno Setup, an excellent free installer. It looks professional, like any other Windows program your colleagues install.

If you want to slap a GUI on top of it, consider Win32::GUI to complete the illusion that it's Just Another Windows Program.

These kinds of thing makes a surprising difference for the acceptance of Perl among people who aren't technically inclined. WYSIWYG. First impressions last. Image is everything. Etc.

Comment on Re: Distributing or Sharing Perl Scripts

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Re: Re: Distributing or Sharing Perl Scripts by scrubroot (Novice) on May 23, 2003 at 14:34 UTC
Personally, I'm a fan of IndigoSTAR's perl2exe when developing code for a Win32 machine, and use it to create both command line and GUI apps. PerlApp may be better, but I've never used it (anyone know of other Perl compilers?). The basic version of perl2exe is cheap enough at something like $45, but the full enterprise version hugely expensive (somewhere in the $400 range if I remember correctly). My largest app to date is some 500K+ plus a few modules that probably bring the code up to somewhere around to 600 – 700K. This compiles into a single 3Meg self-contained executable and *No dependency DLLs like VB*. You can make the code smaller by making your code dependant on the PerlCRT DLL (normally compiled into the executable), but you only save about 700k. If compiling a bunch of apps for one machine, then it would be worth the effort to split the DLL off. Most of the other small stuff I compile starts at about 700K or so and goes up to about 1Meg or so. The more expensive versions of the perl2exe can get your code still smaller, by how much I'm not sure. No matter what version of compiler you end up using, it seems like it would be better than setting up an networked install of Perl. I'd share out a spare Perl machine using VNC before resorted to that.	[reply]

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Re: Re: Distributing or Sharing Perl Scripts
by scrubroot (Novice) on May 23, 2003 at 14:34 UTC

Personally, I'm a fan of IndigoSTAR's perl2exe when developing code for a Win32 machine, and use it to create both command line and GUI apps. PerlApp may be better, but I've never used it (anyone know of other Perl compilers?). The basic version of perl2exe is cheap enough at something like $45, but the full enterprise version hugely expensive (somewhere in the $400 range if I remember correctly). My largest app to date is some 500K+ plus a few modules that probably bring the code up to somewhere around to 600 – 700K. This compiles into a single 3Meg self-contained executable and ***No dependency DLLs like VB***. You can make the code smaller by making your code dependant on the PerlCRT DLL (normally compiled into the executable), but you only save about 700k. If compiling a bunch of apps for one machine, then it would be worth the effort to split the DLL off. Most of the other small stuff I compile starts at about 700K or so and goes up to about 1Meg or so. The more expensive versions of the perl2exe can get your code still smaller, by how much I'm not sure. No matter what version of compiler you end up using, it seems like it would be better than setting up an networked install of Perl. I'd share out a spare Perl machine using VNC before resorted to that.

[reply]