Sorry for taking so long to reply, but for what it's worth:
>Does anybody have any advice for:
>
>How to merge modules together or otherwise
>share a namespace between several authors? I
>think there was recently a big effort to merge
>time/date modules. Any lessons I should take
>from that?
The date/time efforts are still in progress over on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Nothing concrete yet, just some namespace suggestions and some further
suggestions that modules with similar functionality should have similar
APIs.
>How to find all the affected people? Authors
>of related modules, users of unit modules, etc?
>Neither Robert or I are really keen on breaking
>code by moving around modules.
I don't know that there's really any way to contact users other than by
posting to comp.lang.perl.* or relevant mailing lists or websites.
One thing I've seen done with some success is to make your Makefile.PL
print out a big warning:
***********************************************************************
WARNING! The interface of this module has changed significantly between
versions X.XX and Y.YY. Installing this module may cause older code
to break. Are you sure you want to install this module?
***********************************************************************
Of course you should also increment the major version number, eg. going
from 1.XX to 2.XX.
Another thing you could do is provide a backwards compatibility mode,
where the old stuff was left in there but undocumented.
>Any tips for keeping up on how/where a module
>is used or referred to? Frankly I was surprised
>that Convert::Units existed, even though Robert
>knew about (and referred to!) my Math::Units
>module. I was also surprised to find out that
>Math::Units was being actively used even though
>I never advertised it.
There's no real way to do this. A note in your POD saying "please
contact me if you're using this" might help a little, but not much.
A google search might be useful, but again not much.
K.
--
Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://infotrope.net/
"Sure, only 2 percent of the Internet population uses lynx, but they're
the top 2 percent." -- petro, on a.s.r
