[Bioperl-l] No more Makefile.PL (MakeMaker -> Module::Build)

[Sendu Bala]

Chris Fields wrote:
> On Nov 10, 2006, at 4:15 AM, Sendu Bala wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Since I'm seeing inadequacies with the current Makefile.PL scripts we
>> have, I'm thinking of converting from ExtUtils::MakeMaker and the
>> Makefile.PL scripts to Module::Build Build.PL scripts.
[snip]
> I don't have a problem with this as long as it works for all systems.  
> It sounds like a good long-term solution, esp. for CPAN developer releases.
> 
> However, we've already had three RC's using the regular old Makefile.PL 
> setup, which seems to work fine for now.  It also sounds like we will 
> need to update all relevant installation documentation (since we can't 
> run 'perl Makefile.PL' w/o Makefile.PL, unless I'm missing something).  
> Hence I'm a bit worried about adding something new like this after three 
> RCs and just before a final release.
> 
> I think it's something we should do, but I'm not sure we should have it 
> for this release.

Now that I'm looking into it, it seems like quite a job, and yes, 
especially with all the documentation updates that need to be carefully 
looked at. Though to answer your question, Makefile.PL would be 
auto-generated by Build.PL immediately prior to a release and included 
in the distribution file for end users to use, but it wouldn't be in 
CVS. Such a Makefile.PL is essentially a front-end to the Build.PL for 
backwards-compatibility.

For 1.5.2 I may just manually create a META.yml (the one generated via 
Makefile.PL isn't good enough) which only affects CPAN behaviour and 
nothing else we've been testing in the RCs.