From my perspective, PERL5_CPANPLUS_IS_RUNNING was broken by design, primary
because it doesn't do what it says. It just indicates that at some point
above me, CPANPLUS was loaded into memory, not that it is running, and
certainly not that CPANPLUS in particular happened to call the M:I
Makefile.PL.
As for the behaviour of M:I, what work I have done on it is to try and
prevent it doing worse things.
Certainly, setting PERL5_CPANPLUS_IS_RUNNING is now probably a good way to
make M:I detect a "legacy" version of a CPAN client.
After several long discussions in the irc.perl.org #toolchain channel, kane
and I agreed on a new
PERL5_CPANPLUS_IS_EXECUTING=/absolute/path/to/Makefile.PL, which provides
the actual functionality that we need.
As for why we need this stuff, it's to allow M:I to have some idea of what
it is working with in terms of other members of the toolchain.
Show quoted text> I hope this desaster makes it
> clear that none of us can solve this kind of problems alone.
I agree here.
I know you hate using IRC, but if you could find a way to join the rest of
the toolchain maintainers in irc.perl.org #toolchain, you'll find it's very
low traffic, and a higher bandwidth forum might help to avoid this sort of
problem in the future.
If we are limited to stretched out disconnected conversations in mail and
web forums, it's harder to co-ordinate.
On 23/08/07, (Andreas J. Koenig) via RT <bug-Module-Install@rt.cpan.org>
wrote:
Show quoted text>
>
> Queue: Module-Install
> Ticket <URL:
http://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=23735 >
>
> >>>>> On Sun, 19 Aug 2007 00:47:14 -0400, "Michael G Schwern via RT" <
> bug-Module-Install@rt.cpan.org> said:
>
> > Andres, I think Adam and Kane's comments happened during the RT email
> > blackout. You should read them if you haven't.
>
> Thanks Schwern! Indeed I did not receive these postings as mail.
>
> I'm sorry that I dispropriated PERL5_CPANPLUS_IS_RUNNING. This
> decision wasn't done lightly. I waited for 6 months to get this
> desastrous bug in Module::Install addressed and the only way to fix it
> was setting this environment variable. Due to the nature of
> Module::Install it is *never* upgraded, so this particular bug will
> stay around forever. I changed my code now so that the variable is set
> to $$. I fear I cannot stop using it for the time being. Maybe all
> parties should agree on considering this variable being burnt by wrong
> usage. Please deprecate it.
>
> I have not yet fully understood the advice from Adam. Can this find
> its way into the Module::Install docs? Maybe with coding guidelines
> how I'm consided to use this variable? I hope this desaster makes it
> clear that none of us can solve this kind of problems alone. For me it
> makes no sense why we need 4 environment variables to stop one
> builder/installer from going wild but if you can paint the bigger
> picture, I'll be glad to follow your lead.
>
> Thanks,
> --
> andreas
>
>