Re^2: Dist::Zilla Tutorial for beginners

[nysus]

I can only speak for myself, of course, but an intro like mine would have really helped me make a clear distinction between what a module was and what a distribution was. These concepts were muddy for me. Also having some kind of general context for what I was actually trying to achieve would have helped me a great deal as well.

I have not written the guide yet. This is just the intro. I plan on doing a series of short tutorials that to get beginners up to speed on the basics of creating a distribution and how Dist::Zilla can be used to speed that process along.

[hippo]

an intro like mine would have really helped me make a clear distinction between what a module was and what a distribution was. These concepts were muddy for me.

I guess from the phrasing here that you are nysus in disguise. Did you read How to make a CPAN Module Distribution in the Creating and Distributing Modules tutorials section? That makes the distinction pretty clear to me.

Dist::Zilla is sorely lacking an entry-level tutorial or user guide. That's not to say that I would recommend its use for a first-time CPAN author - quite the opposite. It is the most arcane of all the module management systems and is aimed at (and IMHO only really useful for) the most prolific authors.

You can write an intro to CPAN, modules and dists if you wish but there are plenty around already. It would save you time and effort just to refer to those and instead build on them by focusing on the nuts and bolts of Dist::Zilla and how it compares/contrasts with other options.

[haj]

Dist::Zilla is sorely lacking an entry-level tutorial or user guide. That's not to say that I would recommend its use for a first-time CPAN author - quite the opposite. It is the most arcane of all the module management systems and is aimed at (and IMHO only really useful for) the most prolific authors.

In my dream an entry-level tutorial or user guide could promote Dist::Zilla into exactly that: A recommended tool for a first-time (CPAN) module author. It doesn't matter how much magic it can do. Go for Simple problems can be solved easily, and hard problems can be solved.

[Your Mother]

On the dream note I’m going to reassert, It’s a pipe dream. You can’t make advanced algebra friendly to those just learning long division. The packages could maybe gain a “wizard” script (like CPAN does on first shell run) or a lengthy checklist of configuration ideas but you can’t convey the dist, build, meta, make, synopsis, spelling, OS, tests, author tests, env, CI, repos, deps, manifest, versioning, dev versioning, et cetera to someone who doesn’t even know what those things are; and if you automate it, it’s a kind of cargo-culting. In my experience, POD is a lot to ask from first time authors and it’s dead simple. Making Dist::Zilla beginner friendly would be a, to quote a dead bird, crash course in brain surgery.