[Catalyst] Requirement for Makfile.PL or Build.PL in "home"?

[Matt S Trout]

On Mon, May 28, 2007 at 05:20:04PM -0700, Jeff Chimene wrote:
> Matt S Trout wrote:
> > On Mon, May 28, 2007 at 02:00:13PM -0700, Jeff Chimene wrote:
> >> P.S. I originally sent this app to the server via Makefile.PL
> >> constructing a tarball. The disadvantage is that this is a crappy way to
> >> send .PATCH files; which process is how I'd like to move from
> >> development to production in this Brave New World after the initial
> >> deployment. Of course, it turns out that the production machine doesn't
> >> have /usr/bin/patch, but that's another issue.
> >>     
> >
> > That's a really, spectacularly bad idea since it means your deployment process
> > isn't repeatable, which makes it a crappy deployment process :)
> >   
> You aren't the arbiter of what's good or bad. Please just answer my
> questions, reserving your opinions for beer-thirty.

No, but I do have a fair bit of experience deploying software, and I'd strongly
recommend against any deployment process that isn't as simple and repeatable
as possible.

Basically, an idempotent deployment process is almost always preferable where
possible since it means you don't have to consider ordering problems - if
a deployment fails part-way through you can simply re-run it, and if a system
is "out of the loop" for a couple deployments (due to hardware failure, for
e.g) you can still treat it identically to a machine on release N-1.

I'm not on here to 'just answer your questions', I'm on here to be part of a
community discussion list where we not only try and help people solve problems
but to solve problems in -good- ways, especially since this list is archived
and people use archive searches as a way to find ideas and implementation
techniques - and as a member of the core team I try and make clear what I
consider wise and unwise since I'm aware my choices often influence those
of other Catalyst users. You are, of course, welcome to disagree with, argue
against or ignore entirely any opinion I express but that's not going to stop
me expressing them :)

-- 
      Matt S Trout       Need help with your Catalyst or DBIx::Class project?
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