in reply to Re^2: Old version of LWP::Agent
in thread Old version of LWP::Agent

I don't know what kind of debugging info that you expect from WWW::Mechanize? I use WireShark and variants to analyze whether I can get a DNS name resolved, etc.

My internet connect is "fairly reliable", but it will still fail at random unexplainable points - often due to a "barf" at the other end - happens maybe every 3,000 URL's or so. So I just do a re-try which works >99% of the time. Very seldom does one of these things go past one retry and I allow 2 retries.

Logging massive details of all communications in search of an unrepeatable and rare communication failure between you and site X will not help. What are you going to do with that? Sounds like a lot of logging data that will tie your computer into knots while producing no useful actionable information!

If there is some kind of a "bad boy" website (slow, unreliable...whatever), logging that is useful. But you will have that info from the normal functions.

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Re^4: Old version of LWP::Agent
by parser (Acolyte) on Apr 27, 2012 at 14:44 UTC
    Marshall, thank you for your measured and patient responses. I had no idea my post would cause such confusion. I am usually more articulate so this is a new experience for me.

    When I first started using WWW::Mechanize I grew used to setting

    use LWP::Debug qw(+);

    as a simple sanity check to view feedback during my early prototyping phases. Once I need to perform more serious debugging I would use more focused tools such as tamper-data, live-headers, wireshark, etc.

    It sounds like your use case is different than mine. I do not have a requirement to handle 3,000 URIs. I am automating interaction with a limited number of URIs but ones that have fairly complex interaction and formatting (lots of Dojo and Javascript). Having visibility into send and receive traffic (interspersed with my code) at a simple level is useful. Perhaps there is another mechanism I am overlooking besides LWP::Debug.
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