use Perl

At last I've managed to find some time to update some of my modules. The 3 that have been updated so far have all had patches waiting on them, so it was a big help to get me started. In all 3 modules I've managed to add more functionality, some asked for and some I wanted myself. There are lots more tests and the general level of Devel::Cover coverage has increased dramatically. Even Mail::Outlook has gone up to 63.9%, which when you consider that nearly half it's real usage I can't test, isn't too bad. The bits I can't test are the move message/folder, delete message/folder, display and send message. Doing anything with those on a users machine is just asking for trouble.

I now to look at some of the modules that have minor bugs attributed to them and improve my CPANTS ratings. I also need to take some time to start working on CPAN-YACSmoke again. I had to stop partly because of the conference organising, but also because the machine I was developing on has become extremely troublesome. I suspect a Windows patch managed to go wrong somehow as even with SFC and the original Windows CD to try reinstall any bad drivers, it still has problems. I've now ported everything over to the laptop, but it runs 5.8 not 5.6, so I'm a little worried the 5.6 side of things might slip.

However, I managed to save some machines from the tip, when Steve spotted them out the back at the CBSO Centre during the conference. Two of them work, but are very low spec (perfect for CPAN Testing though), while the others I'm going to strip for parts to make the others better. I'll then have a machine I can use for Win32/5.6 testing in the short term and look at implementing PITA in the longer term. The other machine is likely to replace an old machine of mine that has been having motherboard problems and had been earmarked as my backup server. Once that's done I can then turn my attentions to the big beast that has been out of action for nearly a year and was my major development box. Not just for modules, but for websites and all manner of research work I've been doing.

I even had a brainwave for a new module recently, but we'll have to wait and see whether it's worthy enough to ever see a release :) Now the conference is over I can spend a little more time on real development work again. I've missed that.