[Pdx-pm] Starting from scratch with Module::Build

[Marvin Humphrey]

On Jul 1, 2005, at 4:41 PM, Michael G Schwern wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 01, 2005 at 04:10:05PM -0700, Marvin Humphrey wrote:
>
>> Shouldn't writing modules, at least for CPAN, be a _little_ hard, or
>> more precisely, a little involved?
>
> No, why should it?

Because figuring out which modules are worth a damn is already time- 
consuming, and making it easier for people to contribute  
undocumented, untested crap makes it that much harder to pull the  
signal out of the noise.

But maybe I can solve this s/n problem another way.  I'm close to  
finishing a new version of Kinosearch.  Seems like time grows ripe to  
build another CPAN search engine.  Maybe we can get to a happy place  
where it's both easy to contribute and easy for prospective users to  
assess the quality of the contribution.

>> As someone who takes documentation and QC seriously, I appreciate
>> having a template prepared for me that errs on the side of excess.
>
> This I don't understand.

I don't find it burdensome to delete a couple lines of "I'm too lazy  
to write POD" POD, because I'm going to spend a *lot* more time  
writing good POD to replace it than it takes to hit the 'd' key a  
dozen times in vim.  I'm going to check the module and its associated  
files over several times to make sure nothing's missing before I  
publish.

The time that it takes me to clear out unnecessary template material  
is inconsequential compared to the amount of time it takes me to do  
the job right.  It is much harder to scan through a distro saying  
"looks good, looks good, oops looks wrong better fix that", then it  
is to scan through a distro saying "is anything missing, is anything  
missing, is anything missing".

Marvin Humphrey
Rectangular Research
http://www.rectangular.com/