David Golden writes: > On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Smylers <smyl...@stripey.com> wrote: > > > That Perl has this QA thing which tells you which platforms a > > module will work on but that doesn't actually mean it'll install > > only adds to external perceptions of Perl being confusing and > > awkward. > > Of course CPAN Testers doesn't claim to check whether a module > installs, only whether it passes tests.
You say "of course", but I'm not sure. _I_ know what Cpan Testers does[*1], but I don't think it's so obvious to those outside (or new to) the Perl community. Suppose somebody finds a distribution on Cpan Search: http://search.cpan.org/~jzawodny/DBIx-DWIW-0.49/ There's a mention of "CPAN Testers", without explanation. "PASS (46)" doesn't say what it has passed. 'View Reports' goes to: http://www.cpantesters.org/show/DBIx-DWIW.html#DBIx-DWIW-0.49 Again there's nothing there which says what is being tested. There's a promising looking 'Help' box, which starts "So you've stumbled upon this site and are wondering what it all means ..."; that links to: http://www.cpantesters.org/help.html Most of the information on that page is likely to be bewildering or irrelevant to the user who's just stumbled upon the site, but it does say mention that it's "a way to provide multi-platform testing for modules" and provides "valuable feedback for users". So I'm struggling to see where our sys-admin would learn that Cpan Testers don't actually test that modules install on those platforms. Remember, he isn't a Perl programmer. In fact, he isn't a programmer at all: he's only involved in this at all because he wishes to run a program, and that program happens to be written in Perl, with some Cpan dependencies. > It doesn't even tell you whether there are good tests. It could be > t/pass.t with a single pass("fooled you") test and it would still get > a PASS grade on CPAN Testers. Again, I know that but I'm not sure it's obvious to somebody who doesn't (though it's probably easier to deduce than not checking installation). Anyway, our sys-admin could easily end up deciding that Cpan Testers results are clearly wrong, and think less of Cpan Testers or Cpan or Perl or the Perl Community. Maybe in future when evaluating software he'll be more inclined to choose something written in another language, so he doesn't have to deal with the trials of Cpan again. One possible response to this is that he's wrong: he's made an incorrect presumption, and if he goes off elsewhere that's his loss. And that's fair enough. But possibly there are those in the Perl community who think this perception is unfortunate and are interested in doing something about it, making the Perl World a friendlier or more helpful place. [*1] Though actually is there anything stopping somebody from checking whether modules actuall install and sending FAIL results to Cpan Testers for those that didn't? Surely they'd just display like other FAILs. Yes that'd be more involved than what current testers are doing, but I don't think it means it couldn't be done by somebody. Smylers
