CPAN Rating Wrap up

[khemir nadim]

Hi all,

I though I'd write a wrap up for the Rating discussion we started 2 weeks
ago. Please post correction
if I missinterpreted something.

CPAN Rating:

- Most were positive to the changes I and other proposed. only two people
wrote that
it wouldn't get done before even discussing it (a world breaking record)

- We all agreed that the Rating system we have today was good enough (with
some people
suggesting ameliorations) but that it was not used or visible enough.If the
current system was to be more
 widely used, most would feel satisfied. Eric would have like to see a Told
me to (TM) rate the modules

- We have troubles finding out who is holding onto the code, were it is and
how to change it. Some
suggested starting another site to try but it was not taken as a very good
idea (though still an idea)

- The quality of the documentation for CPAN modules was either find to be
lacking or people just
didn't care. It seems to me that all would gladely have more/better
documentation anyhow.

- An alternative Selected CPAN was named. Something in the same spirit as
a moderated mailing list.

Other subjects we talked about:

-Module dependencies; should be listed or automatically generated.

-Auto-generated Readme: we questioned the fact of having a completely
useless auto generated Readme
or  a competely useless 0 bytes Readme.

-PerlForge was named and some ideas germinated from it, ex:  the
possibility to discuss a module
without having to subscribe, providing a web page for the module, etc.. Some
thought that there was
 too much dependency on SourceForge.

I hope this wraps it up. I still don't know where/how/when to help to get
some changes in place.

Cheers, Nadim.

Khemir Nadim [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Hi all,

 I can live with buggy modules (I write some of them).

 I can live with non existant maintainers.

 I can almost live with idiots that think releasing open source code means
 that they take no responsibility over it or that they are GOD.

 I can live with 13 years old module authors with whom it's impossible to
 have an adult conversation.

 I can live with pedantic worthless modules that get big coverage while
 having very little use (IMHO).

 But I can't live anymore with the low quality and release process that
CPAN
 has!!!

 Modules are born, grow, die but not all are born equal!

 How many CPAN modules are properly documented? how many are not documented
 or have documentation that doesn't give a bloody clue about what it is
for?

 I won't talk about tests, maintenance, etc ... because I suck too and I'd
 very much like someone to enlight me by telling me that it's wrong and
maybe
 how to do it right.

 I look at new modules almost everyday, I mirror CPAN just to have it close
 in case of  network failure. I sometimes rate modules but most often when
I
 think they are good (I won't talk about the modules having a single
rating,
 5 stars, written by the author ;-)

 What I propose is:

 - Introduce negative rating, ex: the documentation sucks, minus five
start.
 - Rating should be show by search.cpan.org, anywhere a module name
 (including recent) is show as well as  how many have rated

 I would of course prefer not letting badly documented or tested modules
get
 into CPAN at all but that would certainly eliminate 99,99% of the modules
 (including mine) and hurt joe hacker little ego (which is hugely bigger
than
 his module documentation).

 Now, I'm asking for someone else to do the job (I don't even know who he
is)
 but I'd gladely help if I can, I'd definitively rate more.

 I may just need to become as blazé as CPAN users and just accept the sate
of
 things but I'd rather not.


 I like very much the perl advant calender (a system very popular with my
 kids) and I wouldn't like to cut grass under their feet but couldn't we
test
 a module a week and rate it. That would make 50 seriously rated modules
a
 year. it's more than the total amount of modules I use and it might help
 people getting started with perl (or the modules)

 Cheers, Nadim.

 PS: I know this kind of discussion comes back again and again. If you
don't
 have an input about what I propose we do, please don't bother answering
 about why I want to do it or do it privately.

new module, Data::Form::Elements

[jason scott gessner]

Hi All.
Thanks to Mark Stosberg for helping me name this a while ago.  I have 
released Data::Form::Elements to the CPAN (it should show up in a 
while.  not sure how long it takes.  This is my first public module.  
The module is downloadable here, though:
	http://www.multiply.org/notebook/archives/000588.html
).

Basically, Data::Form::Elements is an OO wrapper around 
Data::FormValidator that gives you a form object with paramaters and 
validation.  The docs in the POD are pretty clear, but here is a short 
example:

use Data::Form::Elements;
   my $form = Data::Form::Elements-new();
   # add a couple elements
   $form-add_element( username, {
   required = 1, errmsg = Please provide your username. 
} );
   $form-add_element( password, {
   required = 1, errmsg = Please provide your password. 
} );

   ...
   $form-validate( %ARGS );
   if ( $form-is_valid() ) {
   # continue logging on ...
   }
I would appreciate any feedback, bug reports ,etc.
Thanks!
-jason scott gessner
[EMAIL PROTECTED]