Standalone Script Naming for CPAN

swestrup has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I've been writing in Perl for years, but I've never released anything to CPAN before.

Now though, I have a bulk rename program that I've been working on, and its nearing the point where I'd like to upload it to CPAN. The big question is what naming hierarchy to use.

I haven't been able to find a FAQ for what the various top-level names in CPAN are for, and the only relevant info I could find in the CPAN FAQs says:

"Please, talk to other people (comp.lang.perl.modules, modules@perl.org or any mailing list that fits your problem domain) before you decide upon the namespace you're going to use for your module."

This doesn't help me much as I haven't had access to usenet for years, and modules@perl.org doesn't appear to be a discussion community. I figured I could ask here about my naming ideas, and you could point me to any better place that I should be asking my questions.

The program itself is a bulk rename utility that was originally based on File::Rename but has now morphed into a completely different beast. It seems that that the App top-level namespace is intended for stand-alone applications, so I've been thinking of uploading it as App::BulkRename or maybe App::FileTools::BulkRename, as there are other related file manipulation tools I may want to release later.

On the other hand, as a distant fork of File::Rename, I suppose that one might also consider uploading it as File::BulkRename but I wonder if that wouldn't confuse folks into thinking its a bulk rename library, as opposed to a stand-alone program.

I also considered uploading it to CPAN scripts, but they seem to demand one-file scripts, and this program already consists of a number of modules and a data file.

Anyway, any advice on naming this thing would be appreciated.

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Re: Standalone Script Naming for CPAN by Corion (Patriarch) on Jun 25, 2010 at 07:42 UTC
Have you seen App::perlmv? It seems to be a bulk renaming script that sounds quite similar to your script. I think App::BulkRename doesn't sound too bad, also App::FileTools::* doesn't sound bad either.	[reply]
Re^2: Standalone Script Naming for CPAN by swestrup (Novice) on Jun 25, 2010 at 20:23 UTC
No, I hadn't seen App::perlmv. Thanks for the pointer. It is similar in many ways to the first few iterations of my script; we both have saved routines for ease of re-use, for instance. However, mine has since added a number of utility functions and a separate execution environment for the scriptlets. That said, there are a couple of good ideas in there that I hadn't considered, and will think about incorporating.	[reply]
Re^3: Standalone Script Naming for CPAN by ctilmes (Vicar) on Jun 28, 2010 at 12:29 UTC
Perhaps you could communicate with that author and between you plan for a clean merge of both, with deprecate of the other? The author might not be interested in maintaining the other one and open to turning it over. Sometimes the only way forward is a fork, but it is usually worth investigating possibilities for avoiding it.	[reply]