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Simon Cozens' modules need you!

by sintadil (Pilgrim)
on Sep 17, 2004 at 00:47 UTC ( [id://391627]=perlnews: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

As petdance noted on his use perl; weblog, Simon Cozens' modules are in need of new maintainers. If you've ever wanted to show the Perl community what you can do with a fine, existing codebase, here's your chance! Go ye hence, take maintainership of said modules, and take them where no modules have been before! Imagine the fame, the prestige ... or just the warm, fuzzy feeling that you'll get from contributing to the Perl community. All relevant details about this event can be found at petdance's weblog, as linked above.

Seriously, this is a very important matter. Modules (and code in general) without maintainers accumulate bitrot over time. This bitrot layers quickly, and becomes harder and harder to remove as time passes. By taking maintainership of your desired modules, you'll be helping not only yourself, but everyone who uses those modules and the Perl community as a whole. I've requested a module, have you?

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Re: Simon Cozens' modules need you!
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Sep 17, 2004 at 02:06 UTC
    Modules (and code in general) without maintainers accumulate bitrot over time.

    How does code that no one touches worsen over time?

      New versions of perl get released, and the code doesn't work with it.

      New/old operating systems acquire a perl, or a user, and the code isn't portable to those systems.

      Bug reports accumulate, feature requests accumulate, doc requests accumulate; the whole lot get swamped in an undifferentiated morass of duplicates and near-duplicates; the module gets a bad name and falls into disuse.

      None of these necessarily affect a working program on a single machine on which nothing changes, but few machines never change. Likewise, though the code doesn't change people's perception does, and I'd rate it unwise to choose to use an unmaintained module for new code for anything but a one-off run-and-discard script.

      Hugo

      I took it to mean that the longer a popular module remains untouched, the more code out there relies on it. Over time, it may become clear that new techniques could improve the module. As long as nobody works on the module, it'll never be improved, and thus all code that relies on it doesn't get improved, either.

      There is some software that covers its problem domain so well that nobody thinks of making substantial improvements on it. There's a reason why C is still considered the best language for writing operating systems. There's a reason why FORTRAN is still used for heavy number crunching in scientific applications (FORTRAN + DOS + memory manager + GHz processsor = very, very fast). However, I would bet that most such examples are exceptional cases.

      "There is no shame in being self-taught, only in not trying to learn in the first place." -- Atrus, Myst: The Book of D'ni.

      Sure, Tie::File has hardly changed in years, and even the last release (with only minor changes) was over a year ago. If the next release of Perl or some module it relies on breaks it for some reason, Dominus will likely fix it pretty quickly. An unmaintained module doesn't have that benefit.

      Makeshifts last the longest.

        (Choosing a random reply.)

        I suppose I see a difference in that an unchanged module may not need changes (and I don't think that a lack of releases in the past year automatically means bitrot). I do take the point quite seriously that sometimes long-stable modules do need updating, though.

        Perl 5.6.2 is a good example.

      How does code that no one touches worsen over time?

      The Jargon File covers this concept, far more eloquently than I ever could.

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