Pinto(3) Curate a repository of Perl modules

VERSION

version 0.097

SYNOPSIS

See pinto to create and manage a Pinto repository.

See pintod to allow remote access to your Pinto repository.

See Pinto::Manual for more information about the Pinto tools.

Stratopan <http://stratopan.com> for hosting your Pinto repository in the cloud.

DESCRIPTION

Pinto is an application for creating and managing a custom CPAN-like repository of Perl modules. The purpose of such a repository is to provide a stable, curated stack of dependencies from which you can reliably build, test, and deploy your application using the standard Perl tool chain. Pinto supports various operations for gathering and managing distribution dependencies within the repository, so that you can control precisely which dependencies go into your application.

FEATURES

Pinto is inspired by Carton, CPAN::Mini::Inject, and MyCPAN::App::DPAN, but adds a few interesting features:
  • Pinto supports multiple indexes

    A Pinto repository can have multiple indexes. Each index corresponds to a ``stack'' of dependencies that you can control. So you can have one stack for development, one for production, one for feature-xyz, and so on. You can also branch and merge stacks to experiment with new dependencies or upgrades.

  • Pinto helps manage incompatibles between dependencies

    Sometimes, you discover that a new version of a dependency is incompatible with your application. Pinto allows you to ``pin'' a dependency to a stack, which prevents it from being accidentally upgraded (either directly or via some other dependency).

  • Pinto has built-in version control

    When things go wrong, you can roll back any of the indexes in your Pinto repository to a prior revision. Also, you can view the complete history of index changes as you add or upgrade dependencies.

  • Pinto can pull archives from multiple remote repositories

    Pinto can pull dependencies from multiple sources, so you can create private (or public) networks of repositories that enable separate teams or individuals to collaborate and share Perl modules.

  • Pinto supports team development

    Pinto is suitable for small to medium-sized development teams and supports concurrent users. Pinto also has a web service interface (via pintod), so remote developers can use a centrally hosted repository.

  • Pinto has a robust command line interface.

    The pinto utility has commands and options to control every aspect of your Pinto repository. They are well documented and behave in the customary UNIX fashion.

  • Pinto can be extended.

    You can extend Pinto by creating Pinto::Action subclasses to perform new operations on your repository, such as extracting documentation from a distribution, or grepping the source code of several distributions.

Pinto vs PAUSE

In some ways, Pinto is similar to PAUSE <http://pause.perl.org>. Both are capable of accepting distributions and constructing a directory structure and index that Perl installers understand. But there are some important differences:
  • Pinto does not promise to index exactly like PAUSE does

    Over the years, PAUSE has evolved complicated heuristics for dealing with all the different ways that Perl code is written and packaged. Pinto is much less sophisticated, and only aspires to produce an index that is ``good enough'' for most situations.

  • Pinto does not understand author permissions

    PAUSE has a system of assigning ownership and co-maintenance permission of modules to specific people. Pinto does not have any such permission system. All activity is logged so you can identify the culprit, but Pinto expects you to be accountable for your actions.

  • Pinto does not enforce security

    PAUSE requires authors to authenticate themselves before they can upload or remove modules. Pinto does not require authentication, so any user with sufficient file permission can potentially change the repository. However pintod does support HTTP authentication, which gives you some control over access to a remote repository.

BUT WHERE IS THE API?

For now, the Pinto API is private and subject to radical change without notice. Any API documentation you see is purely for my own references. In the meantime, the command line utilities mentioned in the ``SYNOPSIS'' are your public user interface.

SUPPORT

Perldoc

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

  perldoc Pinto

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.

Internet Relay Chat

You can get live help by using IRC ( Internet Relay Chat ). If you don't know what IRC is, please read this excellent guide: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat>. Please be courteous and patient when talking to us, as we might be busy or sleeping! You can join those networks/channels and get help:
  • irc.perl.org

    You can connect to the server at 'irc.perl.org' and join this channel: #pinto then talk to this person for help: thaljef.

Bugs / Feature Requests

<https://github.com/thaljef/Pinto/issues>

Source Code

The code is open to the world, and available for you to hack on. Please feel free to browse it and play with it, or whatever. If you want to contribute patches, please send me a diff or prod me to pull from your repository :)

<https://github.com/thaljef/Pinto> 

  git clone git://github.com/thaljef/Pinto.git

CONTRIBUTORS

AUTHOR

Jeffrey Ryan Thalhammer <[email protected]>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2013 by Jeffrey Ryan Thalhammer.

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

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