Re: Reinvent a broken wheel?
by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Jul 07, 2003 at 21:00 UTC
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There's nothing wrong with putting a module on CPAN that has
the same functionality as an existing module. It's not that
the first person to put something on CPAN is somekind of
super-coder whose code can't be improved. Anyone can upload
something on CPAN, and there isn't any code review. Too often
people give the impression that if it's on CPAN, it has to be
good code. This is not true - there's good code on CPAN, but
there's also a lot of bad code. Code that's broken, inefficient, platform or environment specific, or which has
a lousy API.
If there's a piece of code on CPAN that doesn't do what you
want, or which you consider not up to your standards, by
all means, rewrite it and upload it on CPAN. In the worst
case, all it does it take some diskspace on some CPAN mirrors. But others might agree with you and prefer your
implementation over what's already there, and your contribution will enrich CPAN.
Go for it.
Abigail | [reply] |
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Re: Reinvent a broken wheel?
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jul 07, 2003 at 18:10 UTC
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Maybe it's more fun, but I think it might be better real-world experience to fix code that sorta works. I'd personally rather there be one good module on the CPAN than several halfway-working modules.
That's just me, though, so do what you think best. Please write lots of tests, though, so at least your module is more maintainable.
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Re: Reinvent a broken wheel?
by tadman (Prior) on Jul 07, 2003 at 18:09 UTC
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I'd love to have something that was as good as GNU wget which is just unbelievably good at doing that sort of thing, with the only down-side being that it's a shell tool and not a Perl module. It has a lot of functionality that can be engaged with just a command-line switch, something that you'd have to write for yourself in Perl using most of the modules I'm familiar with.
If all you need to do is download images, that's the program to use. It might even be advantageous to make Perl generate the list for it to download, and then let it take care of the gory details. | [reply] |
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Re: Reinvent a broken wheel?
by flounder99 (Friar) on Jul 07, 2003 at 18:20 UTC
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Have you tried contacting the author? Most will gladly accept patches (as long as they work) Even if the patch is a complete rewrite. (again as long as it works better)
-- flounder | [reply] |
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Yeah, I thought about it, but honestly I really haven't written enough Perl programs to be the guy's peer. I'm borderline newbie/intermediate in my programming skills.
That's why I was I thinking about approaching him/them after I come up with my solution.
Thanks.
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Approach now. I did that with PDF::Template and discovered that he had a lot of good ideas on top of mine. He was also extremely happy to hand over maintainership to someone more excited about continuing on the work. Hey, you never know! :-)
------ We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age. Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement. Please remember that I'm crufty and crochety. All opinions are purely mine and all code is untested, unless otherwise specified.
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Re: Reinvent a broken wheel?
by Albannach (Monsignor) on Jul 07, 2003 at 21:17 UTC
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Re: Reinvent a broken wheel?
by kral (Monk) on Jul 08, 2003 at 07:03 UTC
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I suggest to go forward with your project.
It can be better or worse module than the CPAN's one, but in each case you learn something.
And I think this is the most important thing.
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kral
(sorry for my english) | [reply] |
Re: Reinvent a broken wheel?
by giulienk (Curate) on Jul 08, 2003 at 13:31 UTC
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Re: Reinvent a broken wheel?
by David Caughell (Monk) on Jul 08, 2003 at 18:48 UTC
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I think that this forum is probably the last place that someone would want to call a CPAN module poorly written or malfunctioning!
(especially before you contact the author)
Dave.
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You referred to yourself as a "borderline newbie/intermediate." Are you really sure the code he wrote was of low quality or did he just use certain constructs and idioms that you're just not familiar or comfortable with yet?
Either way, I as well would encourage you to go ahead and write your module, if for nothing other than the learning experience.
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