techcode has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

While trying to bring my skills to the next level I found out about automated testing, using code repositories and other nice things. And there are bunch of sources of info about those.

But I wasn't able to find (any) info on automating the deployment of the applications.

Just before I started writing my own build/install script - I just wanted to if there are any hints/articles/cpan module that would help in the process.

I'm also not sure if I understood the whole thing right. Basicaly I was thinking to simply export project from the Subversion repository (by hand) copy it to the destination computer and have the script build/install required modules. Modules would be included in the distribution - and installed localy - just for that application ussage.

It's easiest that way since applications are web based, and most of people installing them would only have shared hosting.

Have you tried freelancing? Check out Scriptlance - I work there. For more info about Scriptlance and freelancing in general check out my home node.

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Re: Automated build and deployment.
by sgifford (Prior) on Jun 07, 2006 at 21:20 UTC
    ExtUtils::MakeMaker includes tools for making distributions which are easy to install.

    Unfortunately, there's no standard packaging format that works everywhere to install things on Web servers. That would be a very useful thing.


    --
    sgifford's Web page
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Re: Automated build and deployment.
by perrin (Chancellor) on Jun 07, 2006 at 21:26 UTC
    What you're describing is the way that the Krang CMS works. You're welcome to look at the code that handles builds and see if it might work for you.
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      Actualy I allready put Krang in the download list :D I heard they are shiping all required modules with it - so figured that it might be worth of checking out.

      Are there any other applications that follow the same/similar path?

      It's a bit limiting because you can only ship pure Perl modules that way - or hope that you have a nice server admin who is willing to do it for you.

      Have you tried freelancing? Check out Scriptlance - I work there. For more info about Scriptlance and freelancing in general check out my home node.
[reply]
        It's a bit limiting because you can only ship pure Perl modules that way - or hope that you have a nice server admin who is willing to do it for you.
        It's actually not that hard to install compiled modules with only Web access; have an installer script, run from a Web browser, that runs the compiler and installs the modules in the user's home directory. See Re: Re: Alternatives to User::Agent? for an example; obviously you'd have to adapt this for your purposes. I've found that this works for most Web hosting companies I've used, and I do it frequently.

        --
        sgifford's Web page
[reply]
        Krang includes XS modules that need to be compiled. It does make certain assumptions about the target though, e.g. that it is a unixy system with a compiler available.
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