The main reason this is hapenning is that it's not currently possible to update
CORE packages in ActivePerl, so any module that depends on a CORE package can
be suffering from this. This problem will persist until it becomes possible to
update core packages in ActivePerl.
It's certainly not an ideal situation, but unless somebody can point out an
easier solution, this is where we are at.
I agree completely. There are some fairly entrenched problem here.
The tipping point for me is that as the author of PPI, I can't even
install it using PPM onto my own Windows laptop so I can do demos of it
at conferences.
I've mentioned it a number of times to a number of people over the
course of almost a year, and with all due respect to Philippe's efforts
to improve PPM I think we've reached the point where the problem is no
longer a single distribution or technical problem, and it isn't
something he can fix.
I think the underlying problem here is that ActiveState has become a
gatekeeper for the entire platform, so whenever a problem like this
comes up, it's necessarily their interests (by which I mean things like
making sure they retain binary compatibility) which take priority over
the community's more varied interest.
And I think it has become a limiting factor.
So as soon as Schwern can be pulled out of Eve Online, and
ExtUtils::Install is released and integrated, I hope to announce the
first public beta of Vanilla Perl 5.8.8.
This gets rid of the idea of prebuilt binary packages as the default
installation method entirely, and moves Win32 module installation to be
the same as it is for every other Perl platform.
That is, you run a cpan client, and you install from CPAN directly.
The default installation method is via CPAN, and any platform-specific
binary package system works in addition to it.
While it may not cover every scenario that ActivePerl currently does,
and is far from a direct replacement, it does mean that the element of
control can be returned, and every Win32 Perl problem doesn't have to be
shoved into gozer's I'm-sure-already-overloaded inbox in order for it to
be fixed.
My hope is it will democratise the Win32 Perl situation a bit more, and
lead to a dramatic improvement in Perl module support on Win32, now that
people can debug modules and generate patches to provide back to the
original authors.
Adam K
