Re: How to promote scripts on cpan?

I agree that we need to promote the scripts on CPAN. Jazzing up the repository couldn't hurt (it looks like it was created by Mennonites, and people looking for plug-n-play stuff for their web sites are not likely to be impressed), along with more aggressive search engine promotion (as neophyte suggests).

But...
"Not Matt's Scripts" desperately needs a rename ASAP, because

it's negative, which we usually try to avoid
we shouldn't be hard on Matt, who as a teenager (IIRC) came up with something which has obviously filled a massive need
it might backfire into an advertisement for the very scripts we'd like to help people avoid.

Update: I should say here that I know that davorg never meant for that name to be permanent

Comment on Re: How to promote scripts on cpan?

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Re: Re: How to promote scripts on cpan? by davorg (Chancellor) on Aug 13, 2001 at 14:24 UTC
we shouldn't be hard on Matt, who as a teenager (IIRC) came up with something which has obviously filled a massive need Actually, I disagree with this one very strongly. Matt was a teenager when he first wrote the scripts, but that was six years ago. In the meantime many people have pointed out the problems with his scripts and have offered to help him fix them. As far as I know he has made no attempt to rewrite the scripts using better practices. He occasionally patches security problems (whilst still not using `-T`) and in the middle of January last year he issued fixes for all of the Y2K bugs in the scripts. Let's not forget that Matt has made a lot of money out of these scripts. As far as I'm concerned Matt has earned as much criticism as we can throw at him. -- <http://www.dave.org.uk> Perl Training in the UK <http://www.iterative-software.com>	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: How to promote scripts on cpan? by virtualsue (Vicar) on Aug 14, 2001 at 01:31 UTC
I don't want to get into an argument over this, but I still have to kinda admire a high school student who managed to cover the Internet with his crufty CGI. Why has it taken the Respectable Perl Programmers of the World so long (6 years) to try to take his customers away from him? He treats his customer base like crap, and he gets away with it.	[reply]
Re: Re: How to promote scripts on cpan? by neophyte (Curate) on Aug 13, 2001 at 13:51 UTC
On the matter of renaming the alternative scripts: I completely agree, and davorg has already said something to that end - for the time being the title is just some placeholder for a better name. Might make a nice quest. (HINT,HINT) neophyte Niederrhein.pm	[reply]