# from Robert Rothenberg
# on Thursday 18 August 2005 07:51 pm:
>h2xs
<snip>
> stupid mistakes.
<snip>
>match regexps of known defaults.
1. Don't call it Test::Stupid - How about Test::Finished
2. Don't use regexs directly (wouldn't this module be likely to fail
it's own tests if you did that?) Use PPI or at least one of the Pod::
parsing modules.
>Maybe also check that the ChangeLog
>has a version which matches the VERSION in the POD
This sort of thing is useful, but not as useful as a helper that
facilitates building/maintaining a Changelog (see Andy's comments.) I
would rather have my changelog and all of the other documentation in
Pod in the .pm file and then autogenerate Changes, README, HACKING, and
Mod::Foo.pod from there (maybe something involving Pod::Readme if I
ever get around to it.)
Of course, if you're autogenerating these things, a test for whether
they are correct would be extremely useful. Maybe writing Test::Info
and adding it to the Module::Starter distribution or something...
Maybe Module::Manager...
<snip>
>There will be a simple script for authors to run so that it checks for
>these things.
<snip>
> uploading a distribution.
>
>Perhaps a Module::Build utility could run this script before building
> a distribution and giving a warning.
If people are still using h2xs to rough-out a module (whether due to
habit or that old bit of "always start with h2xs\n"x3 from the
ExtUtils::MakeMaker docs), then they aren't going to have these tests
in their distribution.
If you want to identify modules on CPAN which have boilerplate pod,
adding a test module isn't the way to do that. For that, you'll need a
program (or extension to search.cpan.org) which identifies and flags
them - or maybe autogenerates patches and uploads them to rt.cpan.org.
--Eric
--
[...proprietary software is better than gpl because...] "There is value
in having somebody you can write checks to, and they fix bugs."
--Mike McNamara (president of a commercial software company)
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