From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@...>
Date: 2008-08-05T23:14:42+09:00
Subject: Re: perl and the culture of libraries

On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 7:05 AM, Peter Fitzgibbons
<peter.fitzgibbons@gmail.com> wrote:
> Isn't it true, though, that rubygems are the defacto distribution model for
> projects in RubyForge ?
> If so, then, like packaging a CPAN .tgz that includes the ./t, ./doc, ./lib
> and Makefile.pl,
> the "default" gem hierarchy created/expected by the gem tools should also
> have ./test, ./doc, and ./lib directories

Yeah, but *expecting* it is a pretty disruptive change. it's hard to
do it incrementally. having hoe create a structure like that wouldn't
be a bad idea, though.

> Also, I seem to recall that although many (most?) projects on CPAN include
> the usual-suspect titles in the documentation
> (Name, Synopsis, Description...), those titles really are purely cultural,
> there is nothing in POD spec that declares what the
> title should be... just "convention"

However, since Perl has settled on said usual-suspect titles, we might
as well take advantage of their experience and adopt them wholesale :)
Again, it wouldn't be something that, say, the gemspec enforces - all
I want to do is provide a tool to make adding those sections the path
of least resistance.

> A lot of this has to do with the 25yrs of history w/ Perl vs the 12yrs
> history w/ Ruby.  12 years is a long time... but seems to me
> a short time in social-cultural development.

Very true. Nothing says we can't stand on the shoulders of the perl
giants, though :)

martin