On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 02:19:31PM +0100, Dariush Pietrzak wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Austin Schutz wrote:
> > Why not just add the functionality to Net::FTP? Or you could
> > subclass Net::FTP and call it something clever like Net::FTP::TLS.
> Because Net::FTP is written in a way that makes it extremely hard to make
> needed modifications.
> It is a very well-thought, large and organized object hierarchy.
> I tried adding TLS support to it almost 2years ago, contacted it's author,
> heard that there is large redesign coming, which will allow changes needed
> for encryption, however there is still no TLS in Net::FTP, and I'm sitting
> here on encryption-enabled client for the past two years.
> Do you think that I should keep it to myself for the next few years?
>
No.
> Additionally Net::FTP works with very large range of ftpservers, which
> fills code with lots and lots of special cases, this (and elaborate object
> hierarchy) makes it very hard for someone to come and extend it, and after
> trying to do that, I can only conclude that I'm too stupid to be playing
> with its internals.
> --
I hear you, really. But as you say, it works with a large range
of ftp servers, with workarounds for the buggy ones, etc.
If you submit your work to Graham and have no luck getting it
incorporated, then never mind. But it would be a shame to have really
large amounts of duplicated effort, especially when people are submitting
reports to you for the same bugs he fixed in Net::FTP years ago.
Additionally I agree with the suggestion of trying to get some
assistance via perlmonks. It may be easier to use Net::FTP as a base class
than you think.. or maybe delegate to a Net::FTP object where useful.
All that said, if you're really just not interested in pursuing that,
then go ahead and release it. Someone else could incorporate it into
Net::FTP at some later date if there's interest. If you go that route
please don't call it Net::FTP::TLS. :-)
Austin
