Tushar Samant wrote:
>
> >A comment just made on the Advocacy list just got me thinking. Seems
> >that it would be nice to have a collection of Anti-Matt scripts -
> >...
>
> Didn't someone start on a "Matt Right" site some time ago? I can't
> find it, though. Anyhow, having alternatives to Matt would indeed
> be good. In fact a couple years ago I had started on it. The reason
> I gave up is because writing a drop-in replacement is complicated
> and unrewarding. It's not just the code that's bad about Matt scripts
> (IMO); the setup and config etc is pretty bad too. Unfortunately, I
> think it's precisely the schlocky conventions which make these scripts
> seem "friendly". So, you will have to make a decision: are you willing
> to write/host better scripts with better interfaces at the risk of not
> being very popular? (If so, I'll be happy to contribute.)
For me, popularity is a non-issue. What I see is that we (the Perl
community) rag on Matt relentlessly, but when asked for an alternative,
we tell people to write it themselves, which is not the right answer.
Also, it seems to me that in about 20 days, when hundreds of people
realize that their CGI programs are no longer working, popularity will
be even less of an issue.
So, yes, I'm willing to contribute scripts that are better-written for
the sake of having scripts that are better written, if only so that when
we criticize "Matt's Script Archive", we have some alternative to
suggest.
Seems completely possible that a "Matt Right" site could have been sued
out of existence. I'd just as soon keep all mention of Matt Wright out
of stuff that actually ends up on CPAN, since smearing Matt's name in no
way improves anyone's image of us. Yes, his code sucks, but we should be
able to provoide code that is good by virtue of being good, rather than
my virtue of sucking less! ;-)
Rich
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