I think the lesson here is this: We all need to remember that while CPAN is a very comprehensive archive, the modules within may not be entirely comprehensive in the features we may think they're supposed to provide

I would say it's more like "be sure to read the POD and look at the dependencies of a module before you go to the effort of installing it." It looks like one of the first statements in the POD is that it only supports MySQL and Pg. POD and dependencies are available for pretty much every module on either of the CPAN search engines, and I never install anything without checking it out on there first.

However, your install difficulties teach another lesson: be careful about adding dependencies on XS-based modules if you want your module to run on Win32.

The flip side of that is that you have to realize that many people are not targetting Win32. It may have a majority of desktops (though surely not 98% as you say), but Linux/BSD is the most common platform for Perl development and has been for years. Win32 support in Perl is amazingly good, but the users on that platform are still a minority, and have to expect a bit more difficulty getting some things to work. It's like being a gamer on a Macintosh: the best stuff typically gets ported, but not everything, and sometimes you have to wait a little while.

In reply to Re: On installing modules with CPAN.pm by perrin
in thread On installing modules with CPAN.pm by Stevie-O

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