Michael G Schwern wrote: [snip]
Sticking with ExtUtils::MakeMaker. :-) [But where's the fun in that.]
I know you're joking, but you've flipped my rant switch.
I was. But at some level, I'm not.
If after changing one dist to use M::B I have more issues than I started with [which was just checking the syntax of my manually edited META.yml], then there's no reason to move all of my dists; even if there are only 6 of them.
However, the same could be said about my META.yml files period.
They weren't broken; just incompleted. I'm the type of idiot that gets the urge to put everything pertinent I can into my META.yml files, even if E::M and M::B don't currently have the means to do exactly what I want.
[snip]
But it hasn't. And I only see a small number of people patching Module::Build. And there's tons of low hanging fruit available.
What's going on here? One thing I see going on is that people are holding Module::Build up to rediculously high standards. Much, much higher than MakeMaker ever was. Anything Module::Build tries to do people still nit-pick it to death, and here's the horrible part, they don't generate much patches.
I would think the same is true of any 'replacement' dist. I wonder if CPAN/CPANPLUS don't suffer from the same issue.
Take dependency resolution. MakeMaker has one way to specify a dependency. MB has a whole spectrum. And yet people still want to fall back to MM's low resolution dep system because MB's isn't quite high enough.
Take create_makefile_pl. Module::Build bends over backwards to be compatible with MakeMaker. It offers not one but THREE different methods of providing that. Hell, it'll even generate a Makefile.PL that will download MB for you! And yet when people encounter small problems with it the response isn't "Here's a patch" or even "I'll just work around that for now". No, its "I'm going back to MakeMaker" where they'll likely have to do more work and more work arounds to achieve the same effect.
Guilty as charged. See top comments. It's not 'going back', it's 'sticking with what already is in place'.
I'd be all to willing to take a stab at patching test_requires and the ability to choose whether create_makefile_pl adds recommends: to PREREQ_PM or not during create_makefile_pl.
But the former meant getting the META.yml spec updated as well, which didn't seam like something that would happen anytime soon. Maybe that's a bad assumption.
[snip]
The point is this.
* Give MB a chance.
* When you encounter a problem in MB, try to patch it.
* Do not expect Ken and Randy to do all the work for you.
* Do not immediately run back to the warm, familiar, utterly flawed embrace of MakeMaker.
Thank you. This has been a rant.
So back to M::B I shall go, and I'll make it do my bidding come hell or high patch water.
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