6 Responses for "Module::Build? EU::MM?"

1. Tim Heaney July 16th, 2009 at 7:26 pm 1

   And some

   http://blog.bluefeet.net/2009/07/authoring-a-cpan-module/

   say to use Module::Install

   http://search.cpan.org/dist/Module-Install/

   I kind of wish we could settle on one.

2. Adam Kennedy July 16th, 2009 at 10:11 pm 2

   Module::Build still doesn’t bootstrap or upgrade itself properly (right now in the default releases) although this is fixed (finally) in the 5.10.1 Perl release.

   Personally, I still recommend avoiding Module::Build until maybe a year after the 5.10.1 release.

   Module::Install is a good choice until that time, after which it may start to become less relevant.

3. David Golden July 17th, 2009 at 3:25 am 3

   Module::Build is fine for most people in most cases. Plus, it can create a ‘traditional’ Makefile.PL for backwards compatibility that, again, will work for most people in most cases. Only if you really need unusual custom actions or dependencies during installation do you need to worry about this debate.

   Module::Install is thin sugar around ExtUtils::MakeMaker and it suffers all the same underlying flaws and issues.

   Here’s what ExtUtils::MakeMaker’s maintainer had to say about it recently: http://use.perl.org/~schwern/journal/39297

4. Matt S Trout July 17th, 2009 at 5:42 am 4

   Module::Build is a great author side tool but until configure_requires support is widely deployed (5.10.1+) there’s significant problems with M::B using dists actually installing.

   However, if you aren’t using anything overly fancy you can generate a plain EUMM Makefile.PL using your Build.PL and ship that, which largely works around it – though at that stage you aren’t really gaining much over EUMM/Module::Install.

   schwern likes to scream about how awful EUMM is, and as the maintainer he is of course very very heavily exposed to the suckages inherent in an old codebase that has to work across a shitton of platforms. That’s fine; I hate most of my own projects (I think the ones I don’t hate are probably the ones other people have mostly rewritten after I yelled “well volunteered” and ran away at high speed

   So, currently, I’d recommend plain Module::Install as “least worst option” but I’m very much looking forwards to configure_requires support being widely deployed in the toolchain so Module::Build can finally give it a run for its money.

   And if schwern ever entirely cracks over ExtUtils::MakeMaker I imagine Adam Kennedy or I will be happy to shove it into a repository somewhere and give out commits bits so it moves into the “maintained by the community” category that Module::Install among other things have already entered.

   (of course, I hate Module::Install as well … mostly the parts I’ve written … what a surprise …

5. The Surprising Answer to Last Posts Question | A Foolish Manifesto July 17th, 2009 at 8:18 pm 5

   [...] I asked “Module::Build? EU::MM?“. Turns out that was a false dichotomy! Almost everyone who responded to my post recommended [...]

6. draegtun July 18th, 2009 at 8:48 am 6

   There is a good summary given by Schwern on this Stackoverflow question:

   http://stackoverflow.com/questions/73889/which-framework-should-i-use-to-write-modules

   /I3az/