C/C++ people need make to compile their programs. {snip} ... Java people need ant {snip} ...

Right. But there are, of course, other generic tasks you might use Make or Ant for. For example, building documentation after updating it, uploading a static website that gets modified regularly, installing your webapp from the qa server to the production one, and so on.

Although I tend to use a mix of [MR]akefiles and homegrown scripts for these sorts of things, I'm curious if other Perl users had alternative solutions.

BTW, Thanks for the links everyone. For my own modules, will read up on Module::Build. :)