2009/1/26 Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes <[email protected]>: > On Sun, January 25, 2009 9:20 pm, Adam Kennedy wrote: >> And because things like ExtUtils::MakeMaker don't understand anything >> more complicated than "depends", all other recommends stuff gets folded >> down into a regular dependency, based on the answer of one person. > > That seems to be the nub of your argument, and it's something that > we can and should change. > > Though assuming the .PL script is the only thing allowed to produce > dependency info instead of allowing that dh-make-perl/CPAN/whatever > can look directly at META.yml. Even if that restriction were accurate, > PREREQ_PM could have a parallel option for recommends (and *_requires, > for that matter).
To confirm, META.yml is only advisory (except the configure_requires fields) and not reliable. Reliable information must be produced by the .PL scripts. That said, the idea of using the .PL scripts to produce a second localised META.yml (called either METALOCAL.yml or MYMETA.yml or something) so that we don't have specific implementation-specific formats (the EU:MM Makefile extract, the M:N deps format, etc). > By the way, what's the status of a minilanguage for the requires:, etc. > fields that allows conditional dependencies based on perl version or OS? > I thought that was just around the corner years ago, but haven't heard > anything since (perhaps because I wasn't listening). Unfortunately, any configuration language would eventually trend towards being turing complete, and thus the final end-point for the configuration language ends up with us just using Perl for the mini-language :) Adam K
