in reply to Being helpful to a fault?

I just read trough all the replies to see if anyone else's first thought when reading the node you're referring to was the same as my first though. Aristotle and I seem to think alike. Auto loading modules for a plugin system would be pretty valid.

And it also bothers me that people try to "answer the bigger question" without answering the question that was actually asked. It's pretty egotistical to think that what the author of a question is trying to do is only a good idea if you can make sense of it.

You didn't tell the author that you were curious what this would be used for or that you were having a hard time understanding it's application. You said that it made little or no sense and that you would loose your sanity if you had to maintain his script, implying he's a bad programmer because of your lack of open mindedness.

What that really says to me is that anything that you can't grasp a use for MUST be useless. To me that's pretty closed minded and lacks creativity.

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Auto-use all modules in location?
by Anonymous Monk on Dec 12, 2003 at 11:23 UTC
    Auto loading modules for a plugin system would be pretty valid.

    I must beg to differ. Or at least, I can't think of a reason :-).

    • Listing modules in a location, for a user to choose from, would be pretty valid. I suppose.
      But what if a plugin didn't appear as MyCompany::Plugins::PluginName? What if it was ThirdParty::CompanyPlugins::PluginName?
    • Auto-loading modules when required would be pretty valid.
      But that's just

      eval "use $module()" or die "Could not load plugin $module, error: $!";

    • Auto-loading modules listed in a config file would be pretty valid.
      Or just require() a file which use-s the ones you want. (Hey, perl has a syntax, why invent another?)

    But why would you want to auto-load modules in a location? If you want to temporarily stop using the module, you'd have to uninstall it.

[reply]
[d/l]
      You have a perl app named someapp.pl. With the app is a spec on how to create plugins for the app. The plugins go into /etc/someapp/. Sharpdevelop does this very thing (but it's not Perl). There's a spec on how to create a plugin and it will load all plugins in the plugin path.

      I'm not saying that the person who asked the question was even intending this, but how is it your or my place to tell someone their wrong without even knowing what they're doing? If something seems suspicious, tell them you're curious as to why. But again, just because you can't see a valid reason doesn't mean that there isn't a valid reason.

[reply]

In Section Meditations