Would like a lazy require option. (rt54947)

[rjbs]

https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=54947

I've been using App::Cmd as a framework for defining individual batch
jobs. This has worked out fairly well so far, but as the number of
jobs/commands has increased into the 70+ range, the overhead of doing a
C on each command has become noticeable.

Because these jobs do a wide range of tasks, each call to the main app
ends up loading 600-ish pm files.

Would you consider adding a lazy_load option which, when true, would
only require the given command during the _prepare_command phase?
Using this option would necessarily enforce a 1-command-per-pm limit.

An added benefit to this in a shared environment, is that other users'
broken commands only affect you if you attempt a command listing or help.

I've attached a proof of concept patch. If you are interested in adding
this option I could create a more formal patch with tests.

Thanks,

• danboo

[nichtich]

See also this blog post referencing the issue. Lazy loading of commands is also related to pull request #20 - it would be great to solve both issues (how to specify commands and how these commands are loaded) together. The slowness of App::Cmd has already complained before and Mark Lawrence wrote App::Dispatcher as fork of App::Cmd in 2011. This is confusing if one is looking for a tool to create a command line app. I'd prefer to get App::Cmd as best as possible instead of more modules on CPAN with unknown features and downsides.

[rjbs]

Why did I never add the obvious comment: Yes, this would be cool.