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.

You are entirely correct. I had missed the line stating its limitation to MySQL and Postgres -- I confess I didn't read the entire POD through. In my defense, I did look -- but I was looking for a BUGS or LIMITATIONS type of section, and the limitation is listed in the DESCRIPTION section.

Win32 support in Perl is nothing short of incredible. When I was able to follow *identical* directions (from perlxstut) on Windows and Linux to flawlessly produce an XS module from h2xs, I nearly fell out of my chair.

And, yes, I am in the minority. But it just grates me when something won't work because they did something like use `pwd` instead of use Cwd, or something depends on a case-sensitive filesystem (there was another meditation on that recently).

However, I wonder I would have been spared the IO::Zlib trouble I suffered on any other OS...

--Stevie-O

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.q>.<4-KI<l|2$<6%s!<qn#F<>;$,
.=pack'N*',"@{[unpack'C*',$_]
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         {}cd;print lc
[download]

plugged in some code based on the example from the POD, and the very first thing I find out is that DateTime::Format::DBI can't handle the 'MSSQL' datetime type.

So write DateTime::Format::MSSQL and put it on CPAN. It'll take you an hour or so, and when you're done, you'll probably never have to mess with it again.

Look, there's even a guide for writing formatting/parsing modules for the DateTime project, so you don't have to make any decisions ;)

Or better yet, write an update for DateTime::Format::DBI and submit it to the original author.

Actually, DateTime::Format::DBI is just a wrapper around other modules. For it to work with DatabaseX, there must be a corresponding DateTime::Format::DatabaseX module.

For the purists -- face it, it's on 98% of the machines out there.

It's on 98% of the desktops. Perl has never been popular with desktop programming (though I know some people have done it, or else the multitude of GUI API modules wouldn't exist). It has primarily been used for server-side and sysadmin tasks, where Win32 dominance isn't as clear.

Getting to your main point: CPAN.pm is a mess, and I think people who have used it for a significant length of time know this. It tends to run itself into infinate loops, hang its own process, and occasionally spawn evil spirits who will come and slay you and your family in the night.

In short, use CPANPLUS.pm.

First off, I'd like to say that I use Win32. (For the purists -- face it, it's on 98% of the machines out there. If you only think that Perl should run on 2% of the world's computers, you can go ahead and stop reading now.)

Unless you were aiming to be deliberately provocative, that parenthetical remark added no value to your message. It gave a screed-like quality to the entire message, tainting it as scorching a few grains of rice in the pot ruins the whole batch. It belies a lack of care and concern.

Others have spoken to the substantive matters, so I won't recapitulate them.