Hi,
Johan Vromans requested that I post a short description of Module::Build
itself. Here's an excerpt (though not necessarily short) from the docs:
DESCRIPTION
This is a beta version of a new module set I've been
working on, "Module::Build". It is meant to be a pure-perl
replacement for "ExtUtils::MakeMaker".
To install "Module::Build", and any other module that uses
"Module::Build" for its installation process, do the
following:
perl Build.PL
./Build # this script is created by 'perl Build.PL'
./Build test
./Build install
Actions defined so far include:
build help
clean install
dist manifest
distcheck realclean
distclean skipcheck
distdir test
disttest testdb
fakeinstall
It's like the "MakeMaker" metaphor, except that "Build" is
a short Perl script, not a long Makefile. State is stored
in a directory called "_build/".
Any customization can be done simply by subclassing
"Module::Build" and adding a method called (for example)
"ACTION_test", overriding the default action. You could
also add a method called "ACTION_whatever", and then you
could perform the action "./Build whatever".
More actions will certainly be added to the core - it
should be easy to do everything that the MakeMaker process
can do. It's going to take some time, though. In the
meantime, I may implement some pass-through functionality
so that unknown actions are passed to MakeMaker.
For information on providing backward compatibility with
"ExtUtils::MakeMaker", see the Module::Build::Compat
manpage.
....
MOTIVATIONS
There are several reasons I wanted to start over, and not
just fix what I didn't like about MakeMaker:
o I don't like the core idea of MakeMaker, namely that
"make" should be involved in the build process. Here
are my reasons:
+ When a person is installing a Perl module, what
can you assume about their environment? Can you
assume they have "make"? No, but you can assume
they have some version of Perl.
+ When a person is writing a Perl module for
intended distribution, can you assume that they
know how to build a Makefile, so they can
customize their build process? No, but you can
assume they know Perl, and could customize that
way.
For years, these things have been a barrier to people
getting the build/install process to do what they
want.
o There are several architectural decisions in MakeMaker
that make it very difficult to customize its behavior.
For instance, when using MakeMaker you do "use
MakeMaker", but the object created in
"WriteMakefile()" is actually blessed into a package
name that's created on the fly, so you can't simply
subclass "ExtUtils::MakeMaker". There is a workaround
"MY" package that lets you override certain MakeMaker
methods, but only certain explicitly predefined (by
MakeMaker) methods can be overridden. Also, the
method of customization is very crude: you have to
modify a string containing the Makefile text for the
particular target.
o It is risky to make major changes to MakeMaker, since
it does so many things, is so important, and generally
works. "Module::Build" is an entirely seperate
package so that I can work on it all I want, without
worrying about backward compatibility.
o Finally, Perl is said to be a language for system
administration. Could it really be the case that Perl
isn't up to the task of building and installing
software? Absolutely not - see the "Cons" package for
one example, at the section on
"http://www.dsmit.com/cons/"; .
-Ken
