Re^4: Disputation of g0n on the power and efficacy of XS

[jhourcle]

expat isn't a hard find, but it'd be possible that other modules may use more obscure programs, which may not be available as source, or may be outdated and not compile under the compiler suite that you have available.

I wouldn't mind seeing better use of the DSLIP codes when searching CPAN, or for there to be a more consistent way for there to be checking in Makefile.PL to verify non-perl dependancies. Of course, it would be difficult to determine the versions of any non-perl requirements. (which I got stung on just last week -- Astro::FITS::CFITSIO requires cfitsio. I didn't think it a problem to install cfitsio through darwin ports. One of the tests failed for Astro::FITS::CFITSIO. After much frustration, I did a little searching, and stumbled across the main site for Astro::FITS::CFITSIO, which mentions:

NOTE: version 2.500 of the cfitsio library is required.

No where is this mentioned in the POD for Astro::FITS::CFITSIO. (and of course, darwin ports had an earlier version)

expat is just the tip of the iceburg. Other modules may contain dependancies on Fortan, like cfitsio, or other languages, that might make it otherwise more complicated to install. It'd be nice for those modules that are just perl wrapped around another program, for there to be a way to find something that is a pure perl implementation, especially when you're trying to debug interaction issues. (eg, Mozilla::LDAP vs. Net::LDAP)