Hi wise Perl authors: I've been building some Perl packages for Debian. I've noticed in the course of this that dh-make-perl (our preferred script for transforming Perl distributions into Debian packages) prefers Makefile.PL over Build.PL.
One problem this has caused is that a Makefile is created which is not removed when 'perl Build clean' is run. Now, Makefile.PL via Module::Build::Compat actually runs Build.PL the first time, so the Makefile expects 'Build' to already exist. The next time the module is built, 'make' is run, which in turn triggers 'perl Build', but this no longer works since Build.PL has not been run yet (so there is no Build). The real question at hand here is: for modules that provide both a Makefile.PL and Build.PL, which should be preferred? More than that, from the perspective of CPAN authors, is it even useful to provide both? Now that Module::Build is a core module, maybe only a Build.PL should be included. Add to this some complication from Module::Install, which also uses Makefile.PL. So in that case maybe Makefile.PL is preferred (for Module::Install to do its thing) rather than Build.PL. (On the other hand, I don't think I've seen modules that mix both M::I and M::B, so in the wild this will probably not be a problem) What does everyone else think? I look forward to reading what other authors have to say about this. Cheers, Jonathan
