I need some advice regarding MyLibrary and CPAN, specifically, what
tack would you suggest for making MyLibrary easier to install?

MyLibrary is a set of object-oriented Perl modules performing
specific I/O functions against a relational database of a particular
design. It uses DBI underneath, so the database application is
irrelevant. We use MySQL.

In the past we created an elaborate Makefile.PL script prompting the
user for various names and passwords. We then created the (MySQL)
database, initialized it, edited a configuration file on-the-fly, and
finally were able to do things like make, make test, and make
install. This Makefile.PL script functioned, but it may have shielded
too much of the guts to make the process transparent.

I am now leaning towards a two-step approach: 1) outline for the user
a step-by-step approach to creating/initializing the database thus
eliminating the elaborations in Makefile.PL, and then 2) doing the
simple make, make test, and make install routines.

Doing Step #1 is not hard, in fact I think it is almost trivial for
any systems administrator to:

   1. mysqladmin -u root -p create mylibrary
   2. mysql -u root -p mylibrary < etc/mylibrary.sql
   3. [grant permissions to a specific MySQL user]
   4. [edit DSN in configuration file]

What approach would you suggest? Should I go back and re-hack the
elaborations in Makefile.PL? Alternatively, I can take the minimalist
approach and allow the systems administrator to create/initialize so
they learn the process better?

--
Eric Lease Morgan
University Libraries of Notre Dame

(574) 631-8604