>>>>> On Sun, 19 Nov 2000 22:22:13 -0800, Sam Horrocks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> Freshmeat doesn't seem to me like the right place to be searching for
> perl modules. In fact the description for libgtop on freshmeat doesn't
> even mention that it has a perl interface. Libgtop is first of all a
> C library which doesn't have any obvious connection to perl.
I make a small difference between searching for a perl module and
writing a perl module. In an ideal world we could give the same answer
in both cases, but in the real world we must optimize the answers. But
I'm not going to split hairs, the reality calls us for action indeed.
> Let's look at the other way - if I'm a perl programmer and want to find
> a perl module that will return process memory usage how am I supposed to
> go about finding this module? I would think CPAN would be the correct
> place to look and it turns out it is, but when I browse the hierarchy
> there, or do a keyword search there, it's really difficult to determine
> that gtop provides such a service.
Correct. You're simply lost right now which is bad.
> If the hierarchy can't be improved, could the gtop author at least
> include some text in the README that explains what sorts of services
> this modules provides? Just saying "provides an interface to libgtop"
> doesn't provide a lot of information - it assumes you already know
> what libgtop does.
Agreed.
> I don't want to rewrite software that's already out there, but
> unfortunately when the modules that are out there are difficult to find,
> that's what winds up happening.
I am evaluating ways to improve searches on CPAN. It's still a long
way down the road. CPAN::WAIT was a first try but it is not maintained
right now. I hope I can activate it again.
--
andreas
