Why not load Perl modules from an HTTP server? I know this sounds a little odd, but the Java community started this practice to publish standard libraries that applications servers (not just J2EE stuff) could pull the most recent code from a known place on startup. Java uses an HTTP class loader (similar to Applets) for this.

I don't have time to search CPAN for this, but I would assume that this would be pretty easy to do with Perl and that someone has already done it. If not, it seems that some startup code could be run to:

• 1.Get a list of files from a CGI or SOAP script.
• 2.Download each file path that is returned (from any HTTP source).
• 3.Place them in some local directory.
• 4.Add this directory to Perl's library path.
• 5.Start running the rest of your code.

The benefit is your local Perl installations would only need a boot loader to pull the rest of the files down to run. You only need to publish your application code to some HTTP server and write a CGI/SOAP script to list them.

An idea anyway (and one that should work on Win32 without a problem).

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