On Fri, Jan 27, 2006 at 11:50:49PM -0800, chromatic wrote:
> Let me save you the trouble of writing it to find the biggest problem right
> now: fairly broken automated testing systems that can't even *run* the
> Build.PL file *or* the compatibility Makefile.PL yet send FAIL reports
> anyway.
I believe that the following won't be a problem with PITA, but the general
smoke system really $expletive annoys me for sending FAIL reports when it
tries to build one of my XS modules on a system without a C compiler.
My opinion is that this is a BUG IN THE SMOKE SYSTEM. The default for perl
is source distribution, so to build perl it's inferred you need a C compiler.
MakeMaker and Module build already automatically handle converting any .xs or
.c files that I ship into installable modules. When creating my package, I
don't need to do anything - it *already just works*. It's already supported.
So my opinion is that it's not necessary for me to manually add to my metadata
saying "I need a C compiler". If my module ships with .c or .xs files, it's
BLOODY OBVIOUS.
So the smoke system should verify whether $Config::Config{cc} exists and can
run, and if it can't, N/A any package that isn't pure perl.
Yes, I really like valid smoke reports, pass or fail.
But FALSE NEGATIVES ARE PROCESS ERRORS.
Nicholas Clark
