Deploying Perl Applications

For two clients, I develop reporting tools which run under Windows. Eventhough both clients have technically knowledgable staff, installing the Perl application I've written for them has often caused headaches. The trouble comes when installing additional Perl modules. ActiveState Perl's ppm tool makes module installation relatively simple, but there were often problems anyway. Neither I nor my clients want to waste time on module installation.

A few days ago, I discovered PerlApp (part of ActiveState's Perl Dev Kit). It lets me package my Perl apps into a single Windows executable. I send my client the .exe, they save it on their local machine and double-click. That's it. All the module dependencies are bundled inside. PerlApp even lets me bundle external configuration and data files into the executable.

I could have used the Perl Archive Toolkit (which is free), but the extra effort isn't worth the lower cost. I'm pretty sure that PerlApp uses PAR internally, but I'm glad to pay ActiveState for polishing off PAR's rough edges.