Hey all!

Recently I began working at a company where I am tasked with writing Perl utilities for NT/2000 administration. Thankfully I found several good books on the subject, including the brand new "Win32 Perl scripting: The Administrator's Handbook" by Dave Roth. I desperately need his Win32::Perms module and it is only available via his website (not on CPAN or ActiveState). Earlier this week I was able to install this (and Win32::Lanman) on one machine. Alas, they were available via ppm repository, so I didn't end up with a local copy. Normally this is not an issue..

Well, it just so happens that the websites for Dave Roth and Jenda krynicky went DOWN this week (same day...) without warning. Jenda's module's seem to be available elsewhere but not Dave's.

So my thought for the week is -- isn't it wise to put your module on CPAN? The PERL world at large needs a backup. Especially if it is the ONLY known short-term solution for something critical. (Yeah, sure, I could probably learn the Win32 API and rewrite it myself in a few weeks but that shouldn't be necessary, eh?)

Does anyone know what's going on with the above websites? Is Dave ok? Just bought his book, which is great. But I need that Win32::Perms module pronto.



Thanks, Umlaut

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: The Missing Win32::Perms Module
by Albannach (Monsignor) on Dec 23, 2000 at 07:56 UTC
    isn't it wise to put your module on CPAN? The PERL world at large needs a backup

    Definitely! This is just the type of story that makes certain people leery of free software, so don't spread it around (1/2 ;-).

    Perhaps it would be a wise policy to avoid stuff that isn't on CPAN (except for experimental use), but even then what assurance have you that CPAN will always be available when you need it? Installing modules over the 'net is a great convenience, as is checking for updates, but I expect/hope that serious (mission-critical) Perl users (probably pretty much everyone here but me, heck most of what I do still runs in Perl 4) keeps their own local archives of everything they use.

    Then again, I wonder. Can anyone offer real-life experience in coping with this sort of problem?

    --
    I'd like to be able to assign to an luser

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      Yes, if it isn't on CPAN then I usually won't try it and will strongly prefer an alternative (including rewriting it myself so that I can put it on CPAN).

      but even then what assurance have you that CPAN will always be available when you need it?

      Just a few days ago, someone told me that they couldn't install some module because CPAN had been down for a couple of days straight. My response was "What do you mean? CPAN is dozens of sites around the world. They all aren't down at the same time." And that is exactly why you should put your stuff on CPAN. (The problem was that their version of CPAN.pm was configured to only check one of these sites.)

      Even if you happen to have a few dozen of your own public sites around the world, putting your stuff on CPAN will get it nicely indexed and searchable and everyone will know where to find it (I get so tired of seeing the "Where do I find..." questions about modules that aren't on CPAN).

      As for software from the internet, for everything but CPAN I've been burned so whenever I download software I stow a copy in my "Masters" collection before installing it. This is difficult for some of the new things were you download a tiny program that "installs" the software by downloading the real software.

      This practice is also helpful when you find yourself fixing things and eventually decide that you need to make a patch to send in. (:

              - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")
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Re: The Missing Win32::Perms Module
by footpad (Abbot) on Dec 24, 2000 at 03:41 UTC
    Umlaut,

    Adding to turnstep's thought, you might also consider posting a review of the book in the Monastary's Reviews section.

    I know I'm always interesting in learning more about books on the market and consult that section before I seriously consider adding another Perl title to my library. I suspect at least a few of ther other monks would be interested, too.

    --f
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Re: The Missing Win32::Perms Module
by turnstep (Parson) on Dec 23, 2000 at 19:42 UTC

    At the very least you should email the author and let him know that you loved his book and would like to recommend it to everyone you know but you can't because the software is not on a established, redundant, worldwide, distributed network like CPAN. :) I'd be hesistant to use something not on CPAN, unless the author's had a stated reason for not putting it there that I could understand.

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Re: The Missing Win32::Perms Module
by Umlaut (Novice) on Dec 24, 2000 at 14:08 UTC

    UPDATE:

    Dave Roth's page is up now.
    My guess is that the server was down for maintenance.

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Re: The Missing Win32::Perms Module
by Trinary (Pilgrim) on Dec 29, 2000 at 23:16 UTC
    For future reference, you can add more repositories to ppm for searching, I think there's a list of them somewhere around either Dave's page or at ActiveState. I'd recommend adding as many as you can, and since (on my version) querying a package takes forever/never returns, just tell it to install whatever you're looking for, and it usually manages.

    Why oh why did activestate feel they needed a totally new package manager?

    Trinary

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      Why oh why did activestate feel they needed a totally new package manager?

      Because 99% of Windows Perl users don't have C compilers and CPAN is built around using your C compiler to install stuff. So if you grab a pre-built binary release of Perl, then you also want to grab some pre-built binary releases of modules. The places that make such for other operating systems also implemented their own packaging for pre-built modules. ActiveState's inability to duplicate CPAN's broad reach is just more obvious because so many people use Windows and such a high percentage of them don't have a C compiler and so grab per-built releases.

      BTW, I've heard some arguments why Dave Roth doesn't release source code to some of his modules. I've never heard an argument as to why he rarely puts them on CPAN (I usually get told to just be grately that he releases any modules at all).

              - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")
[reply]
        Because 99% of Windows Perl users don't have C compilers and CPAN is built around using your C compiler to install stuff.

        Ok, this is true, but all you need to work with CPAN is a functional 'make' and 'install', correct? Does CPAN depend in on the C preprocessor or somesuch? There are win32 ports of GNU make, and install shouldn't be too tough...just seems silly not to support CPAN. Maybe licensing issues were a problem (GPL, whatever), but they could easily have rolled their own instead of writing ppm...heck, I've written my own dependancy graph traversal system.

        Heh, this is something of a pet peeve for me, seeing as I've been shackled to a perl on Win32 project for a month or so now. Well, that and the complete insanity that is the Win32::PerfLib structures. Trust me, stay far, far away, monks. =)

        Trinary

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