use Perl

• There is a team on the other end... (Score:1)

  by gwolf (463) <gwolf at gwolf.cx> on 2008.06.09 13:33 (#63268) Homepage

  The main reason I wholeheartedly agree with Gabor's Kwalitee tests is because I am involved - at the other end. Yes, I am a CPAN author, although a very modest one, but my main work in this regard is in the Debian pkg-perl group. We are currently responsable for about half of the Perl packages in Debian, and we are doing our best effort to get as close as possible to working with you (what we call the upstream authors). Take a look at our QA report page [debian.org] - In our packages, when latest_version_distributed_by_debian is false, it is because of either a bug or a transition going on. Yes, this could probably be merged with has_no_bugs_reported_in_debian, but this one often deals with distribution-specific bugs (i.e. #451600 [debian.org]). Part of Debian's (and even more, our group's) policies are that we should really avoid stacking up patches on our side. Patches should always be pushed to the author, so we don't diverge from the official work (and, of course, the behaviour from user-managed or user-generated code is predictable) and life is simpler from both sides of reality.

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  • Irrelevant to CPANTS (Score:1)

    by chromatic (983)

    Measuring the quality of Debian-specific packaging makes a lot of sense for Debian developers and users, but it's irrelevant for everyone else. As you mention, pkg-perl already tracks these statistics. What possible value is there for CPANTS do to the same?

    (Win32::OLE [cpan.org] is no less useful because there's no Debian package for it and no more useful because its Debian bug queue is empty.)
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Alias (5735)

      If CPANTS can centralise tracking for all the main downstream channels, I for one would find it useful.
      
      Also, I wouldn't write off Win32::OLE in Debian just yet.
      
      I know of at least one person that has been installing Win32 Perl modules on Debian on top of wine.
      
      As for Win32 modules getting a free "no bugs in debian" point, that at least won't cause any harm.
      
      • Re: (Score:1)

        by chromatic (983)

        As for Win32 modules getting a free "no bugs in debian" point, that at least won't cause any harm.

        No one has reported any bugs for my distros on ReactOS, Multics, MVS, Windows 7, VxWorks, or IOS. Some of those are in wide use. I struggle to decide why anyone who doesn't use my code on those platforms should care, and why someone should care to inform them on my behalf.
        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Alias (5735)

          Because it shows that you pay attention to all of the downstream channels, no matter how weird, and make sure none of them accumulate unfixed bugs?
          • Re: (Score:1)

            by chromatic (983)

            Trolling umpteen downstream bug trackers for operating systems I don't use times a few dozen CPAN distributions seems more likely to indicate that 1) I have too much spare time on my hands or 2) I should hand out my rate card more liberally.

            If the BUGS section in my documentation doesn't say "RT please", it will, and then your indication of Kwalitee is that downstream packagers either can't or won't read.
      • Re: (Score:2)

        by TeeJay (2309)

        If SomeThingElse can centralise tracking for all the main downstream channels, I for one would find it useful.

        --
        
        @JAPH = qw(Hacker Perl Another Just);
        print reverse @JAPH;