TITLE

Perl modules should be built with a Perl make program

VERSION

  Maintainer: Mark Leighton Fisher <fisherm@tce.com>
  Date: 29 Sept 2000
  Mailing List: perl6-stdlib@perl.org
  Number: 349
  Version: 1
  Status: Developing

ABSTRACT

Everything but the 'perl' binary should be built with a make program written in Perl.

DESCRIPTION

There are inconsistencies between the versions of 'make'. We already have (from what I've gathered) quite reasonable make-like programs in Perl (pmake and cons). Using one tool written in Perl would make the build process both more reliable and more consistent by reducing the number of system-dependent entities in the build process.

If a cons-like tool is chosen there is also the advantage of using a tool better able to handle complex builds.

IMPLEMENTATION

Probably either pmake or cons should be chosen rather than writing a tool from scratch, although virtual targets (targets like 'install' or 'all') should be added to cons before it is used in the Perl module build process.

There should be a module corresponding to ExtUtils::MakeMaker that generates makefiles for the new Perl make-like program.

REFERENCES

ExtUtils::MakeMaker