Re: Helping with CPAN modules

What module? Does it have a website or mailing list or other known support group? Does it have other recent releases/maintenance?

Emailing the author is good, but be prepared that it could possibly be a long (maybe even weeks) time before getting a response. Who knows if the author is around or has any free time or is still able to maintain the module or not..

I'm sure you could get good avice/feedback from here as well if you posted your ideas and/or revisions here (maybe in snippets?), especially if it's a module/topic others have used or could use.

As far as what to write the author, hopefully someone will point to a good set of guidelines if one exists, but I think that working off of the bug list and todo list is good because it's things the author presumably wants done already. Also send the author good diff files as well as your complete file, so make it as easy as possible for him to review what you did and merge it into his codebase.

Comment on Re: Helping with CPAN modules

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Re^2: Helping with CPAN modules by shemp (Deacon) on Jun 17, 2005 at 18:06 UTC
Oh sorry, the module is Geo::Distance I've kept my work to the closest() method. I have made modifications to get it working properly with DBI. I also added the 'inner radius simplistic calculation' (see the to do list) but there are issues with it. Its not really a radius, but instead its an inscribed square. (The initial test is a circumscribed square). But the inner test cannot be used if you need the actual distances from the centerpoint, which would include sorting the results by distance. I also added doing both the outer and inner optimizations for arrayref sources, again with the same distance caveat. I am a mathematician by education, but have no formal training in non-euclidian geometry, so im wary about messing with the various distance calculations at this point.	[reply]
Re^3: Helping with CPAN modules by davidrw (Prior) on Jun 17, 2005 at 18:49 UTC
Geo::Distance has a few recent releases, so looks promising for you. The author is actually a monk, too (bluefeet), but unfortunately inactive for a while.. He also has a section on his website for the module here. Best of Luck!	[reply]