use Perl

cpan6 - moving forward

Journal written by mugwumpjism (1871) and posted by davorg on 2006.09.08 6:29   

Mark Overmeer gave a talk at YAPC::Europe 2006 about cpan6, the design so far is the result of a collaboration between Mark and myself. The talk was generally well received, and during the conference we have heard many more peoples' concerns. The good news is that there were no new requirements that didn't fit cleanly in the design, in fact it gave some people lots of ideas. I think I can say that we have support for the general direction of things, and now we can open up the debate widely, and start implementing pieces.

I invite people to join either the pause6 mailing list (for infrastructure discussions) or the cpan6 tools list (for client-side installers and upload tools).

The earliest task will be looking at the big picture, and seeing which pieces are the low-hanging fruit that we can write tests for straight away. I'll start the ball rolling after we have a few subscriptions.

• Sweet! (Score:1)

  by DAxelrod (4649)

  This is something I've had great interest in, and have been doing some thinking myself as well. Expect me to lurk in the mailing list archives until I have some larger issues with my email figured out though.
  
  Thank you for helping to get this particular ball rolling!
• Questions, Concerns, Complaints, oh my! (Score:1)

  by Alias (5735)

  A while back I speculated on the various proposals for a "CPAN Replacement" I saw and mentioned that it appeared to me that there was a lack of planning.
  
  Mark asked me to not comment on CPAN6 until after the release at YAPC::EU and gave me an early copy of the paper, and I've happily done so.
  
  But reading through the final version of the paper, some concerns remain.
  
  Without wanting to get too much into specifics, I was wondering how you plan to deal with this type of thing. I see a lot of detail on what your so
  • Re: (Score:2)

    by hfb (74)

    The CPAN is very large and very complex, and replacing it isn't going to be as simple as we might think.

    Not true. The CPAN is rather small by today's standards and very simple. Clearly, you've not read the Zen paper describing the mechanics of it in very simple, straighforward terms. You are correct in supposing that it will not be simple to replace, but likely not for the right reasons. Anyone can build an ftp archive, put it on the net and open it for business. What makes CPAN work is not to be foun
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by mugwumpjism (1871)

      My concern for this project is that clearly little research was done into what has been done in the past (e.g. that we had already agreed to Audrey's request to make a 6pan repos on the existing CPAN)

      While this was news to us, and our research did not uncover this - nor did any of the people at YAPC::Europe mention this to us - the efforts need not conflict; I hope they can re-inforce one another.

      CPAN is about the only thing keeping a lot of users of perl around and introducing a P6-like CPAN archive
      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hfb (74)

        This is a confusing assertion. Why would users care if another system is being built to replace it, especially if we are extremely careful not to switch the old one off for several years? It will be giving them only more options.

        Because if the same sort of design and implementation limbo that now exists with P6 with P5 more or less moribund, is introduced to CPAN, it has the potential to finally push away those who are already on the fence. One being dead and one not being implemented with far too many
        • There need be no limbo. (Score:1)

          by mugwumpjism (1871)

          Simpler approaches to the distribution problem are already under development, in competing projects such as 6pan. I wish them the best of luck and hope in turn to be able to be of benefit to them. Perhaps someone could follow-up with the link? I feel a bit shouted down with the way these comments work.
          • Re: (Score:2)

            by hfb (74)

            6PAN is a competing project? *sigh*
            • In that it is complementary and independent (Score:1)

              by mugwumpjism (1871)

              AIUI 6pan is just another area of CPAN. This is difficult, because for 6pan there appears to be basically no information about what is happening, apart from an old stagnant mailing list.
          • Re: (Score:1)

            by tsee (4409)

            Personally, I think that competing Perl repositories will only make matters worse. One of the reasons why CPAN is successful is that it is *the* place to turn to for Perl modules.
            
            Other than that, I won't repeat Elaine's, Adam's and brian's points because I agree with them. I think the three of you disagree much less than Elaine stated anyway.
            
            Steffen
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Alias (5735)

      > What makes CPAN work is not to be found in the software.
      
      And that is exactly what I mean.
      
      "CPAN" as an FTP archive is a non-issue, the actual distribution part is the simplest and most trivial part.
      
      What makes it successful is indeed due in big part to the social parts of the system, and those are the very things that a notional replacement design would have to take into account.
      
      > Uh, because they just...did it...instead of talking it over and taking 6+ years to design the ultimate archive?
      
      Who did? Var
  • Re: (Score:1)

    by mugwumpjism (1871)

    I see a lot of detail on what your solution looks like, but not so much detail on things like the underlying reason for it's existance, use cases, constraints, assumptions, priorities, and so on and so forth.

    The "Emerging problems" section of the Global Design Document [cpan6.org] cover a lot of the shortcomings of the current CPAN. Also see the section "Projects" in the chapter "Pause6 Organization" for some more examples.

    How do you plan to deal with these sorts of issues ... and how willing are you to change
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Alias (5735)

      The setup you have there makes it really hard...
      
      I'm already on a billion mailing lists, unless you plan to have it go onto nntp.perl.org I really don't want to be on two more.
      
      I don't know how I'm supposed to generate patches to a postscript file (why isn't everyhing just text or HTML) and in any case, I'm useless with patches, and so is Windows.
      
      Not to mention I can't actually read the postscript file on this system.
      
      OK, I may be bitching here, but if 90% of the computer users can't play nicely without projec
      • Re: (Score:2)

        by brian_d_foy (44)

        I agree with Adam. I'm not sure how you selected Jarkko and Adam to be the early reviewers of the paper, but it seems to me that Andreas might have something good to say, and that the current PAUSE admins might have had a lot of wisdom to add. My first inkling that anything was happening is when someone subscribed me to the CPAN6 mailing lists. I suppose that's a nice jesture, but no personal note accompanied the subscriptions, and I promptly unsubscribed. I don't do mailing lists. Put it on nntp.perl.org a
        • We have been consulting with people. (Score:1)

          by mugwumpjism (1871)

          I'm not sure how you selected Jarkko and Adam to be the early reviewers of the paper, but it seems to me that Andreas might have something good to say,

          Mark has been in contact with Andreas along the way.

          ... and that the current PAUSE admins might have had a lot of wisdom to add.

          We basically sent it to the people who asked for it. We have taken the initial design, subjected it to review and now we are asking the wider community for input. There's no point in releasing something before it is ready
      • Send patches to the TeX source, not the PS (Score:1)

        by mugwumpjism (1871)

        And if you do not wish to send patches, you don't need to. Just raise issues like you have done.