[Catalyst] PPM vs CPAN

[Nilson Santos Figueiredo Junior]

On 6/29/06, Hugh Lampert <hlampert at earthlink.net> wrote:
> OK, don't mean to sound like a whiner here, and I haven't spent any time
> investigating the  various GCC packages, but it's making me laugh that
> it's been suggested I download a C++ development package just so I can
> get my perl modules to install.

Although I'm primarily a Windows user, I can't really deny that the
only one to blame in this situation is Windows itself for not having a
way to easily build stuff yourself. *Every* other OS has this sort of
things. Even those Linux distros that are completely targetted at the
end user (such as Ubuntu) and don't come with a bundled compiler can
have it easily installed with a mere "apt-get install gcc".

I find it rather weird that the suggestion of downloading a C/C++
development package in order to compile C/C++ code makes you laugh.
It's like saying that downloading Perl in order to run Perl
application makes you laugh. Clearly you've got a wicked sense of
humor.

> I know... I'm supposed to do that all myself, and I guess I will, but
> for now I just don't have time.

After downloading the setup file, it takes a double-click plus three
aditional clicks in order to get it installed. I really can't imagine
someone *this* busy.

> I mean I only want to finish my small app. My boss is going to split his
> gut when I tell him first I need to download a C++ dev package so I can
> install the application framework that actually is written in perl.

Catalyst's written in Perl. Most of its dependencies also are. But
some of them have parts written in C/C++. How do you expect to compile
C/C++ code without a C/C++ compiler?

I can't really figure what's the hassle about a 8MB download, some
mouse clicks and about 1 or 2 minutes of setup time. I can't really
figure out why your boss should even know or care about what you're
using to get your job done.

> Looks like I'll be sticking to whatever Catalyst modules are available
> in PPM form for now. Not because I'm afraid of installing GCC, but
> because I can't imagine altering the roll-out environment to the point
> of installing UNIX emulation layers or C++ development packages just to
> put this app into production.

There's no need of installing UNIX emulation layers.

If your worries are deployment related, you could easily use PAR,
which would pack the already compiled DLLs in a single package.
Production servers shouldn't need this installed.

Also, unless it's something absolutely necessary, I'd suggest you
against deploying it in a Windows server. It's somewhat of a hassle to
get mod_perl or FastCGI working correctly under Windows, the best I've
got so far is running Catalyst under Apache::Registry, since mod_perl
crashes when using PerlModule directives and I can't manage to even
compile FastCGI and it's related Perl module and the built-in server
becomes really slow if you need to support IE clients directly
connecting thanks to the necessary -k switch.

-Nilson Santos F. Jr.