Re: Introducing Apache2::ASP

I'm sure I'm not the only person to be amused that you dislike TT because it has so many dependencies (although they're all nice and portable and in my experience they Just Work Everywhere) but your module has all kinds of dependencies which are harder to build and configure, such as Apache2.x and mod_perl2.x and at least the fifteen modules you list in your Makefile.PL!

Even so - good work!

A small issue I spotted - in your Makefile.PL for lots of your dependencies you don't list a module version. This is a Bad Idea as some modules have changed their interfaces over time. Test::More being an example. You should only give an empty version number if you're certain that any old version will work.

Comment on Re: Introducing Apache2::ASP

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Re^2: Introducing Apache2::ASP (dependency version requirements) by ChemBoy (Priest) on Jun 05, 2007 at 16:38 UTC
I have to chime in here to disagree with what you seem to be advocating for Makefile.PL dependencies—if you know that a given version of a module is required (for a feature or a bug-fix, for instance), then of course you should absolutely put that in your dependency list. But if you say "there should always be a version number," you inevitably encourage people to put the version number they have installed (since that's the only one they can prove works), even if "any old version" would in fact be fine. Thus forcing a potentially unnecessary upgrade on anybody who wants to install their module, which is (in my personal opinion) bad manners. This is not to say that I disagree with the general position that having the correct version number for module dependencies is important—for something with as many moving parts as a web framework, in fact, I'd encourage the author to do some checking to establish what the minimum version numbers actually are. But I find the "require the latest version of everything" philosophy can have very annoying results when applied indiscriminately (are you listening, h2xs? I thought not.), and this seemed an opportune moment at which to point out some of the objections to it. If God had meant us to fly, he would never have given us the railroads. --Michael Flanders	[reply]
Re^2: Introducing Apache2::ASP by jdrago_999 (Hermit) on Jun 05, 2007 at 17:15 UTC
I'm sure I'm not the only person to be amused that you dislike TT because it has so many dependencies... I admit - TT does generally seem to Just Work these days. I think any problems I once had must have been resolved by the folks working on TT or perhaps on my end by just not trying to install it on a box running RedHat 9 :). but your module has all kinds of dependencies which are harder to build and configure, such as Apache2.x and mod_perl2.x and at least the fifteen modules you list in your Makefile.PL! I agree - Apache2, mod_perl2 and libapreq2 generally need some Know-How to get working properly. I hope to address this in the upcoming "How the heck to I install this thing" documentation. As for the other modules - my limited experience has shown that they all install quite easily. My limited experience installing Apache2::ASP has been mostly on RHEL4 and Fedora6. Now that Apache2::ASP::Session::MySQL comes by default, I'll need to add DBD::mysql to the dependency list. Before the v1.0 release is made, I'll make sure to adjust the required version numbers to the bare minimums. Thank you for the constructive criticism - it is very much appreciated!	[reply]