Just butting in, apologies.
It may not have been Jim's intention below, but I get the impression that his comments on
CPAN are a bit harsh.
It is true that a number of modules are apparently no longer supported. I have used many
modules over the years, and sometimes have had problems with some of them (mostly not
though). And when for these problematic cases, I have tried to get help, the results have
beem mixed; but the mix for me has been rather good. I would say that in my case, 90% of
the CPAN modules I ever used worked out of the box. For the 10% remaining, in 75% of the
cases I did get help from the person advertised as the author or the maintainer, and in
25% of cases I never got a response.
But then, as Jim himself indicated, people move on, without necessarily changing their
email addresses. Considering how old some of these modules are, I guess people also
retire, or even pass away.
But the fact of the matter is that CPAN is still an incredible resource, unequalled in my
view by any other similar module library of any other language anywhere. And I find it
amazing that at least 90% of the modules which I have downloaded from CPAN and used over
the last 15 years, just work, and moreover keep on working through many, many iterations
of programs and perl versions, and that in fact one very rarely needs additional support
for them. When I compare this with other programming languages and support libraries, I
believe we perl programmers are incredibly spoiled.
Another area where CPAN shines, is the documentation of most modules. I cannot count the
times where I was faced with a request in an area of which I knew nothing at all, and have
just browsed CPAN for modules related to that area, just to read their documentation and
get at least an idea of what this was all about.
In recent years, Wikipedia may slowly becoming a runner-up, in terms of general
information. But when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of interfacing with whatever API
(or lack of ditto) programmers in their most delirious moments might have come up with,
these CPAN modules are unbeatable. Even if after that you decide to program your stuff in
another language than perl, it's still useful.
(Just for fun, go into CPAN and search for "NATO" (or more pragmatically, for "sharepoint"
e.g.)(or even, God forbid, for "Google" or "Facebook" ;-)); who thinks of such things ?)
So, to summarise : that some modules on CPAN would be marked as "maintained" or
"supported" and would turn out on closer inspection not to really be anymore, I find this
a very small price to pay for the wealth of good information and working code that lives
there.
My sincerest thanks to CPAN and all its contributors and maintainers over the years (that
includes you of course, Jim). What you have done and are doing is of incredible benefit
to many, many programmers worldwide.
André
Jim Schueler wrote:
I still use Alpine. And they never fixed the bug where ctrl-c (to
cancel a message) and ctrl-x (to send) are so easily confused. Oops.
Maybe it's time to start using a mouse.
Having wasted so much time, I'll try to be succinct:
Most modules on CPAN are bascially throwaways and not supported at all.
Use them at your own risk.
There are some modules that are just obsolete. Good intentions aside,
the developers lost interest and moved on. These are less risky if
there's an established user base.
There are some very good modules, widely used, that are fully supported
and perfectly safe for a production environment.
Most mod_perl modules, especially the core modules, fall into that last,
gold standard, category. In many cases, support is transferred from one
individual to another. And so that commitment is documented. But if a
module is no longer supported, don't lie about it. Support forums are
an incredible resource. But if commercial software developers similarly
blurred this distinction, every p.o.s. would be advertising free 24x7
tech support.
Apache::DBI seems like a #2 pretending to be a #3. On the basis of your
response, I've concluded that Apache::DBI is no longer supported and has
been superceded by newer modules. Especially if no one responds and
explicitly accepts the responsibility, this seems like the most
appropriate answer for the poster of the original thread.
I owe you a :) from a couple posts ago. :)
-Jim
On Fri, 31 May 2013, Perrin Harkins wrote:
Hi Jim,
I appreciate the thought, but I'm not the mod_perl list. If you look
at who
has done the most support around here recently, it's probably Torsten.
(Thanks Torsten!) More to the point, there are many people on the
list who
know enough perl to help with a question about Apache::DBI. It's a
common
practice to point people here for support on mod_perl modules.
What are you getting at? Is there a module that you're having trouble
with
and can't get support for?
- Perrin
On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 10:56 AM, Jim Schueler <jschue...@eloquency.com>
wrote:
There's an existing thread with an Apache::DBI question. But
since I want to post a separate question to this list, I decided
to start a new thread.
Just got done reading the Man page for Apache::DBI. One of the
last notes suggests that this package is obsolete (having been
replaced by Class::DBI or DBIx::CLASS). Beyond that is the
following:
Edmund Mergl was the original author of Apache::DBI. It is now
supported
and maintained by the modperl mailinglist, see the mod_perl
documentation
for instructions on how to subscribe.
Unless Perrin Harkins agreed to take over support for this
module, then that statement is not true. Otherwise, out of
respect for Perrin, I'll try to be general.
(Aside: Am I the only developer that comes across 'unless () {}
else {}' constructions?)
It seems very few distros on CPAN are actually supported. For
my part, I still monitor this list to support my own
contributions from *many* years ago. And I k