[Catalyst] PPM vs CPAN (Was: Problem with Catalyst Authorization)

[Nilson Santos Figueiredo Junior]

On 6/26/06, Hugh Lampert <hlampert at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Thanks for responding!  Perhaps you can forward this to the mailing
> list, as I am unable to reach it from my work (the mail server will not
> accept my relays.)

Done. I'll answer your message without removing anything you wrote.

> I looked at the CPAN shell and it seems to be harder to use and less
> flexible than the PPM shell (Couldn't find an easy way find module
> descriptions like the PPM describe command, for example).  Also, PPM's
> are pretty much "guaranteed" by the packagers to work with ActiveState
> Perl - I've been hesitant to install modules from CPAN due to fear of
> blowing up my Perl installs.  Perhaps that's a foolish fear? I mean
> development is time intensive enough without debugging problems
> introduced by incompatible modules.  Your discussion of the problem with
> Module::Install is a good example that I'd prefer to not have to worry
> about if I didn't have to.  I also see that the CPAN shell is soon to be
> deprecated in favor of CPANPLUS in Perl 5.10 - Is it worth it for me to
> switch from PPM to something new that won't be applicable shortly?

I really can't understand what you mean by flexible, then. I agree
that it's a little bit easier to use the PPM shell but it's really *a
little bit* (basically, at the CPAN shell you'll have to confirm the
install of dependencies [even when you set your preferences to
automatically follow them] while the PPM shell will do this
automatically - I could argue this is one of the lack of flexibilities
of the PPM shell).

It really is a foolish fear, IMO. There's no such thing as "blowing up
your Perl install". The same sense of safety provided by the PPM shell
regarding module compatibility is also available at the CPAN shell
(i.e. version checking of dependencies, because that's pretty much the
"compatibility" that is verified).

I think this subject really can be summed up like this: the things
that are problematic when dealing with the CPAN shell are usually not
even available when you're restricted to the PPM shell. So, when you
get an error when using the CPAN shell, probably that module (or
module version) isn't even available at ActiveState's repositories. At
least, you'll have a chance to fix it yourself and make it work
instead of not even having the choice to do it.

-Nilson Santos F. Jr.