How you deploy your Perl code has a lot to due with the sophistication of the users and also how much time you want to spend on the installation/deployment package. Most of my code gets deployed to Windows end-users. These guys have never heard the word "Perl" much less "make". For this case, I make a stand-alone .exe file for Windows with the ActiveState tools. This works pretty well. I can stuff an icon into the .exe file and it looks familiar to them, "click here". It is also possible to make executable files for Mac and Linux.

If you are deploying onto a Unix system with a system admin, then the sophistication level is vastly different and some base Perl stuff will already be there to assist a Perl installation script. This is a chicken and egg thing! I mean how do you run the CPAN module without Perl to begin with? You can also have your own Perl environment independent of system default, i.e it is ok for you to run Perl 5.10 even if they have 5.8. But 5.x was there in the first place to get you started!

Anyway for the unsophisticated user, I recommend deploying an .exe file. The programs that I've deployed in source code format have been to sophisticated users who don't mind installing or verifying a few modules are there. So I guess this is a "your mileage my vary" thing.