Re: The CPAN Morass
I sympathize with the compiler errors. But its not acceptable to have someone other than the maintainer decide to remove a contribution from CPAN unless it is malware or is stolen property etc. Merely no longer working if it ever did isn't cause. That is the point of the Kwality metric and the availability of test reports. BTW not everyone uses gcc. It is its own 'standard' mostly. I agree that usually C code needs to be generic and portable but this may not be possible. I have code (not mine, but that of one of the programmers I support at work) gcc won't compile but Solaris Studio does (and vice versa alas). CPAN is source code. It is likely some is junk. Others are in the eye of the beholder. Others are more subtle: if you installed my http::ADS (no mean feat considering it assumes you run your own network ) you would find all code executes cleanly but you get false positives. Maybe someone else will pick it up and derive something from it and maybe I will work on it again one day. Meanwhile, leave it where it is. It doesn't hurt anyone. We can have endless tangential discussions on CPAN testers testing in inappropriate environments, using broken compilers and so forth. Dana Hudes
Re: The CPAN Morass
I would like to nominate Linda W. for receipt of a full refund of her CPAN subscription fees.
Re: The CPAN Morass
David Nicol wrote: I would like to nominate Linda W. for receipt of a full refund of her CPAN subscription fees. Now, now, behave. :) Linda has a valid viewpoint. In the past, I myself have spent too much time trying to figure out which of the plethora of Mail modules I should be using. (They surely must procreate via genetic algorithms) While I shy away from ditching archived code (being in contention for Author of the Least Used Module in CPAN), I agree that there is no analogue to browsing in the library where I can tell at a glance if this potential object of my affections is shiny new or old and tatty. Yes, people are erecting the shop fronts for great code and communities, but on principle, we shouldn't be bulldozing forgotten modules. The Rough Guide to CPAN highlights the attractions and makes it easy to navigate. Sure CPAN is great, but it could be even better and that takes work. best, -- Boyd Duffee Keele University Systems Guy (01782) 734225 Ё моё! - Pavel Andreievich Chekov
