On Jan 23, 2009, at 3:31 AM, Scott Haneda wrote:
And I think I am a good case in which that sort of failed me. I needed Net::SMTP, but to me, as a user, it was not there. I tried port list p5-net-smtp, and nothing.

There are generally two kinds of users who need a specific perl module:

1 - The vast majority will need it as a dependency for something else (and they don't really care about that module as long as whatever they are trying to install works).

2 - People who plan on writing scripts or doing something else outside of MacPorts that require that module.

Looks like you were in group #2? Most of the time, I would think that someone who wanted a specific perl module would either know (or find it trivial to discover) that it was part of a 'larger' package of modules.

I sort of like the idea of a port file being a pointer to download some other package that contains the parent modules, unless someone tells me it is a really bad idea.


It's not necessarily a bad idea, it's just a lot of work for the maintainer (since each module would require a portfile that points back to the parent package).

Not that it excuses the MacPorts behavior, but I don't think the other package managers do this.

I think making the ports you want show up more easily when doing port search would be an easier way to approach fixing this.
--
Daniel J. Luke
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