1Alien::Build::Manual::CUosnetrriCbounttirnigb(u3t)ed PerAlliDeonc:u:mBeunitladt:i:oMnanual::Contributing(3)
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6 Alien::Build::Manual::Contributing - Over-detailed contributing guide
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9 version 1.55
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12 perldoc Alien::Build::Manual::Contributing
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15 Thank you for considering to contribute to my open source project! If
16 you have a small patch please consider just submitting it. Doing so
17 through the project GitHub is probably the best way:
18 <https://github.com/plicease/Alien-Build/issues>
20 If you have a more invasive enhancement or bugfix to contribute, please
22 take the time to review these guidelines. In general it is good idea
23 to work closely with the Alien::Build developers, and the best way to
24 contact them is on the "#native" IRC channel on irc.perl.org.
25 History
27 Joel Berger wrote the original Alien::Base. This distribution included
28 the runtime code Alien::Base and an installer class
29 Alien::Base::ModuleBuild. The significant thing about Alien::Base was
30 that it provided tools to make it relatively easy for people to roll
31 their own Alien distributions. Over time, the Perl5-Alien (github
32 organization) or "Alien::Base team" has taken over development of
33 Alien::Base with myself (Graham Ollis) being responsible for
34 integration and releases. Joel Berger is still involved in the
35 project.
36 Since the original development of Alien::Base, Module::Build, on which
38 Alien::Base::ModuleBuild is based, has been removed from the core of
39 Perl. It seemed worthwhile to write a replacement installer that works
40 with ExtUtils::MakeMaker which IS still bundled with the Perl core.
41 Because this is a significant undertaking it is my intention to
42 integrate the many lessons learned by Joel Berger, myself and the
43 "Alien::Base team" as possible. If the interface seems good then it is
44 because I've stolen the ideas from some pretty good places.
45 Philosophy
47 avoid dependencies
48 One of the challenges with Alien development is that you are by the
50 nature of the problem, trying to make everyone happy. Developers
51 working out of CPAN just want stuff to work, and some build
52 environments can be hostile in terms of tool availability, so for
53 reliability you end up pulling a lot of dependencies. On the other
54 hand, operating system vendors who are building Perl modules usually
55 want to use the system version of a library so that they do not have to
56 patch libraries in multiple places. Such vendors have to package any
57 extra dependencies and having to do so for packages that the don't even
58 use makes them understandably unhappy.
59 As general policy the Alien::Build core should have as few dependencies
61 as possible, and should only pull extra dependencies if they are
62 needed. Where dependencies cannot be avoidable, popular and reliable
63 CPAN modules, which are already available as packages in the major
64 Linux vendors (Debian, Red Hat) should be preferred.
65 As such Alien::Build is hyper aggressive at using dynamic
67 prerequisites.
68 interface agnostic
70 One of the challenges with Alien::Buil::ModuleBuild was that
72 Module::Build was pulled from the core. In addition, there is a degree
73 of hostility toward Module::Build in some corners of the Perl
74 community. I agree with Joel Berger's rationale for choosing
75 Module::Build at the time, as I believe its interface more easily lends
76 itself to building Alien distributions.
77 That said, an important feature of Alien::Build is that it is installer
79 agnostic. Although it is initially designed to work with
80 ExtUtils::MakeMaker, it has been designed from the ground up to work
81 with any installer (Perl, or otherwise).
82 As an extension of this, although Alien::Build may have external CPAN
84 dependencies, they should not be exposed to developers USING
85 Alien::Build. As an example, Path::Tiny is used heavily internally
86 because it does what File::Spec does, plus the things that it doesn't,
87 and uses forward slashes on Windows (backslashes are the "correct
88 separator on windows, but actually using them tends to break
89 everything). However, there aren't any interfaces in Alien::Build that
90 will return a Path::Tiny object (or if there are, then this is a bug).
91 This means that if we ever need to port Alien::Build to a platform that
93 doesn't support Path::Tiny (such as VMS), then it may require some work
94 to Alien::Build itself, modules that USE Alien::Build shouldn't need to
95 be modified.
96 plugable
98 The actual logic that probes the system, downloads source and builds it
100 should be as pluggable as possible. One of the challenges with
101 Alien::Build::ModuleBuild was that it was designed to work well with
102 software that works with "autoconf" and "pkg-config". While you can
103 build with other tools, you have to know a bit of how the installer
104 logic works, and which hooks need to be tweaked.
105 Alien::Build has plugins for "autoconf", "pkgconf" (successor of
107 "pkg-config"), vanilla Makefiles, and CMake. If your build system
108 doesn't have a plugin, then all you have to do is write one! Plugins
109 that prove their worth may be merged into the Alien::Build core.
110 Plugins that after a while feel like maybe not such a good idea may be
111 removed from the core, or even from CPAN itself.
112 In addition, Alien::Build has a special type of plugin, called a
114 negotiator which picks the best plugin for the particular environment
115 that it is running in. This way, as development of the negotiator and
116 plugins develop over time modules that use Alien::Build will benefit,
117 without having to change the way they interface with Alien::Build
118
120 I would like to that Joel Berger for getting things running in the
121 first place. Also important to thank other members of the "Alien::Base
122 team":
123 Zaki Mughal (SIVOAIS)
125 Ed J (ETJ, mohawk)
127 Also kind thanks to all of the developers who have contributed to
129 Alien::Base over the years:
130 <https://metacpan.org/pod/Alien::Base#CONTRIBUTORS>
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134 alienfile, Alien::Build::MM, Alien::Build::Plugin, Alien::Base, Alien
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137 Author: Graham Ollis <plicease@cpan.org>
138 Contributors:
140 Diab Jerius (DJERIUS)
142 Roy Storey
144 Ilya Pavlov
146 David Mertens (run4flat)
148 Mark Nunberg (mordy, mnunberg)
150 Christian Walde (Mithaldu)
152 Brian Wightman (MidLifeXis)
154 Zaki Mughal (zmughal)
156 mohawk (mohawk2, ETJ)
158 Vikas N Kumar (vikasnkumar)
160 Flavio Poletti (polettix)
162 Salvador Fandiño (salva)
164 Gianni Ceccarelli (dakkar)
166 Pavel Shaydo (zwon, trinitum)
168 Kang-min Liu (劉康民, gugod)
170 Nicholas Shipp (nshp)
172 Juan Julián Merelo Guervós (JJ)
174 Joel Berger (JBERGER)
176 Petr Pisar (ppisar)
178 Lance Wicks (LANCEW)
180 Ahmad Fatoum (a3f, ATHREEF)
182 José Joaquín Atria (JJATRIA)
184 Duke Leto (LETO)
186 Shoichi Kaji (SKAJI)
188 Shawn Laffan (SLAFFAN)
190 Paul Evans (leonerd, PEVANS)
192
194 This software is copyright (c) 2011-2018 by Graham Ollis.
195 This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
197 the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.
198perl v5.28.1 2019-02-A2l4ien::Build::Manual::Contributing(3)