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NAME

Dist::Zilla::Chef - Cook your distributions with Dist::Zilla

VERSION

version 0.003

DESCRIPTION

Dist::Zilla::Chef is a suite of Dist::Zilla commands that help you build & test your dist AND all of its dependencies. The idea is to use Dist::Zilla to establish a workflow for managing and testing dependencies in isolation while your dist grows and evolves.

Dist::Zilla::Chef relies on Pinto to create and manage a local CPAN-like repository containing a snapshot of all the prerequisites that are required by your dist. As your code evolves, you can use the Dist::Zilla::Chef commands to periodically load the repository with any additional prerequisites that your dist needs. At any time, you can build your dist and all of its dependencies in isolation, thus giving you a full test of your entire code stack.

This is alpha code. It is just a proof of concept. It could even be a disproof of concept. You have been warned.

WHY IT IS CALLED CHEF

In some ways, creating a dist is like cooking food, and you are the chef! Your dist has many ingredients (dependencies). We store these ingredients in a pantry (Pinto repository). When we are hungry for some code, we cook (build) our dist by combining it with all of the necessary ingredients.

I know, the cooking metaphor isn't perfect. But I needed a coherent set of names for these command plugins. The cooking metaphor seemed reasonable. Who knows, maybe it will get some traction. Suggestions are welcome.

HOW TO COOK

Here's the general workflow for using the Dist::Zilla::Chef commands. For this example, suppose you are going to make a new distribution called Frobulator. So you use dzil to create the basic distribution structure for you...

  $> dzil new Frobulator

Now we write some code. Suppose you've decided that the Frobulator is going to use Dancer. We also add an ABSTRACT, which is required by Dist::Zilla...

  # in lib/Frobulator.pm
  package Frobulator;

  # ABSTRACT: Does stuff

  use Dancer;

And after a few minutes of coding, you have a few subroutines and maybe a couple test scripts to accompany Frobulator. Now it is time to cook!

First, you need to gather the "ingredients" for your distribution and "stock" them in the "pantry"...

  dzil stock

Dancer (and all of its dependencies) will now be "stocked" in a CPAN-like repository in the pan directory. Now you can "cook" your distribution and all of its dependencies together...

  dzil cook

This builds, tests, and installs your distribution into the dlib directory, along with all the dependencies. The result is stashed in the dlib directory.

Now suppose you add a new dependency on Test::More. Once again, we run the stock command to gather any ingredients that are missing from our pantry...

  dzil stock

And finally, we cook our distribution again...

  dzil cook

But this time, only the new dependencies need to be built, since the dlib directory still has all the dependencies from the last baking.

Over time, the dlib directory may get crufty, or you just might want to cook from scratch again. In that case, you "scrub" your work space to remove the dlib directory...

  dzil scrub

Now the next time you cook, Dist::Zilla::Chef will assemble your distribution and all of its dependencies again.

SUPPORT

Perldoc

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

  perldoc Dist::Zilla::Chef

Websites

The following websites have more information about this module, and may be of help to you. As always, in addition to those websites please use your favorite search engine to discover more resources.

Bugs / Feature Requests

https://github.com/thaljef/Dist-Zilla-Chef/issues

Source Code

https://github.com/thaljef/Dist-Zilla-Chef

  git clone git://github.com/thaljef/Dist-Zilla-Chef.git

AUTHOR

Jeffrey Ryan Thalhammer <jeff@imaginative-software.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2011 by Imaginative Software Systems.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.