[Catalyst] How to use local::lib

[Tomas Doran]

On 23 Jun 2009, at 09:41, Tobias Kremer wrote:
>> Developers can then use what they like (and whatever OS/versions  
>> of modules)
>> they want, if they want to install the app locally, but that's  
>> unsupported.
>> I'd also make a 'production like' (i.e. same OS) vmware machine  
>> available
>> with the 'standard' dependencies - all of your developers should  
>> be given
>> enough horsepower to run vmware, problem solved.
>
> Yes, that'd be possible. Nevertheless, it would be nice if you could
> bring up a new development box with "make installdeps" that "just
> works" because it has the right module versions installed and not some
> new, probably incompatible version.

Aha, well, the obvious correct solution to that is to spin up and  
install your environment dependencies with the latest CPAN  
$everything on a nightly basis, and run your smoke tests, then yell  
at CPAN authors whos newer module broke your code..

If you're not doing something similar (even if more informally), then  
you can get into big issues in a couple of years trying to reuse any  
modern code (or upgrade something due to a bug) - it has newer  
dependencies, and you can't upgrade, and suddenly you're in a nasty  
place...

I totally appreciate the need to have a 'known environment' for  
production, but at least testing newer CPAN releases automatically is  
very worthwhile..

> Cool, but what I really meant to ask was: Is it possible to require a
> specific version in your Makefile.PL and have only this version
> installed during "make installdeps"? :) This would possibly solve most
> of the CPAN-related deployment problems.

No, unfortunately it isn't..

Cheers
t0m