On Sat, 2004-09-04 at 17:59, John Siracusa wrote: > Actually, the other day I was thinking about how I tend to create any useful > perl program that I plan to distribute in the form of a big, monolithic > script. Take the distribution out of the equation and I'd write a series of > generic modules, blah blah, the usual nicely factored design. But the > headaches of trying to get users to install modules before they can run my > wonderful program always leads me to "flatten" it all into a tradition Big > Honkin' Script (ah, the days of Perl 4...)
Actually, I think at least 80% of your concern melts away with Perl 6, not for any technical reason, but because the culture is GOING to change. Right now, compilation isn't really seen as a step for Perl programs, and that's why people expect to be able to just "go". Come Perl 6, if your Makefile.pl can (perhaps as a configurable option like "MONOLITHIC=1") build a single byte-coded program that includes everything as well as seperately installing your modules, then the user can make the call as to how they want to use it. Heck, you could include a pre-built monolithic compiled version that would get replaced if the user compiled it themselves. So, while the rest of this thread is useful, I'm not sure it's as pertinent as you thought. -- Aaron Sherman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Senior Systems Engineer and Toolsmith "It's the sound of a satellite saying, 'get me down!'" -Shriekback
