[Catalyst] Debian recommendation

[Alejandro Imass]

Sorry for the top post but my answer is simple. I have used Debian for
Catalyst development since I discovered Catalyst. I use CPAN because
no distro can keep up with the fast changing Catalyst world, so it's
no use to use the distro packages. Besides I develop in Debian and
deploy in FreeBSD 6 and 7, so I am used to CPAN anyway.

Perhaps you know this and failed to mention it but Debian has a clear
Perl Policy:

http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/perl-policy/

My rule is that many XS-type modules are better installed with the
distro's packages DBI, and the DBDs are examples of this. The rest of
the Catalyst packages I install with CPAN and have yet to run into any
problems. I have been using Debian since 2.0 and Catalyst since it
came out.

Best,
Alejandro Imass

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Evan Carroll <lists at evancarroll.com> wrote:
> I just wanted to buzz in and be slightly more explicit. Debian doesn't
> understand Perl, and they don't care about CPAN. Debian hand-hacks
> stuff in the most virulent and ridiculous fashion: they'll open up a
> perl class, hack in an extra method, make random other methods die
> explicitly, and then they'll make your system dependent on it. I use
> CPAN too, and Debian as my primary distribution but that doesn't
> change a thing. They could for instance, subclass a module for use by
> the system into a ::Debian package, but instead they choose the dirty
> hack-it-in method which makes life difficult for those of us who want
> to simply get a job done. The Debian packages don't have to pass the
> natural tests, they're not published under the same namespaces, they
> don't change version numbers, and they're hardly sound improvements.
>
> Debian will justify this because they want the system configured
> through /etc, and not at the whim of each individual author, but
> unfortunately that doesn't help us here, or people that depend on the
> non-debian behavoir.
>
> Use CPAN at your risk, it might work -- it might not. I do, and I feel
> comfortable saying most programmers on this list can probably navigate
> around the problems Debian creates, but for the end perl user, Debian
> is a horrible platform.
>
> --
> Evan Carroll
> System Lord of the Internets
>
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