David Golden wrote:
So I keep noticing "litter" in my home directory while running the
smoker. It looks like either temp files or default locations for
things. I consider that bad behavior for tests.
I have been guilty of that *in the past*.
During my rewrite of ExtUtils::ModuleMaker in July-Sept 2005, I wanted
to add functionality for a .modulemakerrc file which would enable an
experienced user to do short-cuts around the prompts in the
'modulemaker' command-line utility. So the question, "Can I save a file
under a user's home directory?" became important. I know that at one
point I was unintentionally leaving files on tester's servers.
Eventually I deduced what was happening by examining FAIL reports I was
getting from imacat.
I corrected the problem and, at the suggestion of Michael Graham, made
that solution generally available on CPAN: File::Save::Home.
I'm considering making my home directory read-only and then smoking
all of CPAN again to see what fails its tests.
I haven't had to think much of File::Save::Home recently (except insofar
as an alternative to File::HomeDir -- but that's a separate thread), so
I don't know how such a change in your policies would affect it. But
since people are probably not aware of the problem, I would hope that
you would first try to encourage good practices (which may or may not
include File::Save::Home) and only make your directory read-only as a
last resort.
Jim Keenan
