When should you prefer environment variables (PERL5LIB, PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT), and when should you avoid it?

When developing Perl applications, you may encounter situations where using environment variables like PERL5LIB and PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT can be beneficial or problematic. Understanding when to prefer them is crucial for maintaining a clean and efficient development environment.

When to Prefer Environment Variables

• Project-specific Configurations: Use environment variables for loading specific libraries needed for a particular project without affecting the global Perl setup.
• Local Development: If you're developing locally and testing in different environments, setting PERL5LIB can help load the correct library paths.
• Dynamic Library Management: When working with many projects that require different library versions, environment variables allow for easy switching.

When to Avoid Environment Variables

• Global Conflicts: If there are multiple projects that require conflicting library versions, using environment variables can lead to issues.
• Hard to Trace: Environment variables can make it difficult to track dependencies in your code, as they are set outside of the application context.
• Deployment Simplicity: For production environments, it is often better to bundle the required modules with the application rather than relying on environment variables.

Example Usage