On 11 May 2002, Andreas Marcel Riechert wrote: > While at the moment these FAIL reports are quiet random -- meaning you > get a FAIL if the user has not installed the used module, but a PASS if > the user has installed it -- we had a discussion about exactly this topic > a few month ago. The common consent on this list was to send FAIL reports > if you catch such missing modules while runing "make test". IMHO, we > should continue this reporting policy. > For the modules author changing PREREQ_PM and uploading again is just > a matter of a few minutes, while it makes all our lives as users much > more easy. I have no idea how many of these FAIL reports -- where > usually I talk about PREREQ_PM -- I have sent but I never got complaints, > and most, if not all authors changed there Makefile.PL. > > Lets continue with these FAILS and educate the authors about PREREQ_PM.
I agree about the use of PREREQ_PM being useful for users, and educating authors about it, but reporting a FAIL based on a prerequisite not being installed doesn't really contain any useful information on how the module fares on that particular platform. Another user on the exact same platform, but with the necessary prerequisites, may report a PASS. Or perhaps a FAIL, for different reasons. And then a situation might arise of multiple reports on the same module on essentially the same platform, some passing, and some failing, and having to look at the reports in some detail to disentangle the reasons. A casual browser of the cpan-testers site may not want to bother doing this, making the service less useful. best regards, randy
