Whenever I adopt a module now, one of the first things I do is switch to Dist::Zilla, because it makes my life easier. But now I'm thinking I should only do this when it's a clear adoption, with minimal chance of the previous maintainer getting involved again. There's the perennial problem people have with DZ: to work on a module you have to install Dist::Zilla, and that doesn't always go smoothly.
When I adopt a module (as opposed to getting co-maint, which suggests it won't just be me doing releases in the near future), I generally:
Before my adoption of Dist::Zilla, I'd usually end up pasting a lot of boilerplate into Makefile.PL. And I'd often forget to update MANIFEST when adding or removing files. DZ generates those files, and it's not forgetful.
Quite a lot of the dists I adopt are single-module dists, for which DZ might seem a bit heavyweight, but it makes my life a lot easier, and the adoption process quicker.
I've thought about hacking together a dzil switch command, which
would do the above, and also
.pm files at the top level, move them into lib/.test.p, move it into t/.Anyway, with a recent dist I was a little too quick to switch.
The original author wanted to contribute, but Dist::Zilla wouldn't
install cleanly. I don't know the specifics, but that's not the point.
Authors expect the toolchain to always 'just work', and I think that's
reasonable. Makefile.PL + ExtUtils::MakeMaker is a pretty reliable
option.
So for now, I need to be a tad more cautious before switching.
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