in reply to The Missing Win32::Perms Module

For future reference, you can add more repositories to ppm for searching, I think there's a list of them somewhere around either Dave's page or at ActiveState. I'd recommend adding as many as you can, and since (on my version) querying a package takes forever/never returns, just tell it to install whatever you're looking for, and it usually manages.

Why oh why did activestate feel they needed a totally new package manager?

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(tye)Re2: The Missing Win32::Perms Module
by tye (Sage) on Dec 29, 2000 at 23:25 UTC

    Why oh why did activestate feel they needed a totally new package manager?

    Because 99% of Windows Perl users don't have C compilers and CPAN is built around using your C compiler to install stuff. So if you grab a pre-built binary release of Perl, then you also want to grab some pre-built binary releases of modules. The places that make such for other operating systems also implemented their own packaging for pre-built modules. ActiveState's inability to duplicate CPAN's broad reach is just more obvious because so many people use Windows and such a high percentage of them don't have a C compiler and so grab per-built releases.

    BTW, I've heard some arguments why Dave Roth doesn't release source code to some of his modules. I've never heard an argument as to why he rarely puts them on CPAN (I usually get told to just be grately that he releases any modules at all).

            - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")
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      Because 99% of Windows Perl users don't have C compilers and CPAN is built around using your C compiler to install stuff.

      Ok, this is true, but all you need to work with CPAN is a functional 'make' and 'install', correct? Does CPAN depend in on the C preprocessor or somesuch? There are win32 ports of GNU make, and install shouldn't be too tough...just seems silly not to support CPAN. Maybe licensing issues were a problem (GPL, whatever), but they could easily have rolled their own instead of writing ppm...heck, I've written my own dependancy graph traversal system.

      Heh, this is something of a pet peeve for me, seeing as I've been shackled to a perl on Win32 project for a month or so now. Well, that and the complete insanity that is the Win32::PerfLib structures. Trust me, stay far, far away, monks. =)

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        Many modules only need "make". Many modules include C code and need a C compiler. Perhaps it would be a good thing if ActiveState would refrain from making PPM distributions for modules that don't require a C compiler. Perhaps it would be even better if the PPM client knew how to use CPAN for such modules instead.

        I think it would be great if ActiveState would switch to building their free binary distribution of Perl with a free C compiler so only the lazy would have to use PPM. (:

        P.S. Win32::PerfLib probably just returns the insanity that is Win32 performance data blocks. Those are certainly lots of fun!

                - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")
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