NAME

    Menlo - A CPAN client

DESCRIPTION

    Menlo is a code name for cpanm 2.0, developed with the goal to replace
    cpanm and its backend with a more flexible, extensible and easier to
    use APIs.

COMPATIBILITY

    Menlo is developed within cpanm git repository at the menlo branch. It
    keeps the developer test suite intact, which means all of the features
    implemented as of cpanm 1.7032 are supposed to work in Menlo with
    cpanm-menlo command line tool and its backend, Menlo::CLI::Compat.

    Menlo::CLI::Compat started off as a copy of App::cpanminus::script, but
    will go under a big refactoring to extract all the bits out of it.
    Hopefully the end result will be just a shim and translation layer to
    interpret command line options.

    A new client, possibly called menlo, and object oriented APIs will be
    added later in the development phase.

MOTIVATION

    cpanm has been a popular choice of CPAN package installer for many
    developers, because it is lightweight, fast, and requires no
    configuration in most environments.

    Meanwhile, the way cpanm has been implemented (one God class, and all
    modules are packaged in one script with fatpacker) makes it difficult
    to extend, or modify the behaviors at a runtime, unless you decide to
    fork the code or monkeypatch its hidden backend class.

    cpanm also has no scriptable API or hook points, which means you have
    to work around its behavior by writing a shell wrapper, or parsing the
    output of its standard out or a build log file.

    Menlo will keep the best aspects of cpanm, which is dependencies free,
    configuration free, lightweight and fast to install CPAN modules. At
    the same time, it's impelmented as a standard perl module, available on
    CPAN, and you can extend its behavior by either using its modular
    interfaces, or writing plugins to hook into its behaviors.

FAQ

    Dependencies free? I see many prerequisites in Menlo.

      Right now, Menlo is in the development phase and is released as a
      standard perl module distribution, and has a few runtime
      dependencies. Actually most of these modules were consumed by cpanm
      as well, and they aren't new.

      When I decide it's ready for production and to replace cpanm, I'll
      make a fatpacked version of the script, which will bundle all the
      dependencies into one file, just like cpanm does.

    Is Menlo a new name for cpanm?

      Right now it's just a code name, but I'm comfortable calling this a
      new package name for cpanm 2's backend.

AUTHOR

    Tatsuhiko Miyagawa <miyagawa@bulknews.net>

COPYRIGHT

    2010- Tatsuhiko Miyagawa

LICENSE

    This software is licensed under the same terms as Perl.

SEE ALSO

    cpanm

