I don't neccessarily agree with Randal's choice of wording, or his sentiment, but he has a valid point, that bears some discussion...

Module::Build may be the latest greatest thing in building perl modules, but it seems to me (and aparently at least a few other people) that untill the release version of CPAN.pm supports it, modules posted to CPAN should include a Makefile.PL.

If someone wants to release some perl code on their www site that has special instructions for installing it, fine ... that's their choice. But I like to think that CPAN modules should be held to a slightly higher standard in which there is an expectation that it can be installed as easily as any other module using the CPAN.pm shell.

If I release a distribution on CPAN that was encoded in such a way that required special knowledge in order to install it (either a magic decryption string, or a lot of time pooring over the code to figure out how it was encoded and how to get arround it) would that be an appropriate use of CPAN? ... would it be fair to the perl community at large that I had released a module in such a way that novice users wouldn't be able to install it using the standard installation tools?

This doesn't seem any different. Yes it's an Acme module, and sure there are more inportant things in the world to worry about then this one module ... but it's prompted my curiosity: at what point does a CPAN distribution become "unacceptable" to the perl community?

In reply to Re: Acme::Lingua::Pirate::Perl author needs encouragement to add Makefile.PL by hossman
in thread Acme::Lingua::Pirate::Perl author needs encouragement to add Makefile.PL by merlyn

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.