Re: Catch 22

On Sat, Dec 26, 2009 at 6:10 AM, Mike Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 09:56:35PM -0600, Andy Lester wrote:
>>
>> > PERL_DL_NONLAZY=1 /bin/perl "-MExtUtils::Command::MM" "-e" "test_harness(0,
> +'blib/lib', 'blib/arch')" t/*.t
>> > t/00_about_verbose....ok
>> > t/01_old_junk.........ok
>> > t/pod.................skipped
>> >        all skipped: Test::Pod 1.14 required for testing POD
>> > All tests successful, 1 test skipped.
>> > Files=3, Tests=3,  0 wallclock secs ( 0.02 cusr +  0.00 csys =  0.02 CPU)
>> >
>> > BTW, how can all tests be successful, if one is skipped?
>>
>> So, make test does not fail.  That is how things are supposed to work.  You
> +don't have Test::Pod 1.14 installed, and t/pod.t says "OK, we'll just skip the
> +POD testing," and everything is fine.  If you were installing that via the CPAN
> +shell, it would go ahead and do the install for you.
>
> When an output stipulates: Test::Pod 1.14 required for testing POD
> to me that means a failure.   Sorry, as a nube to installing this stuff for
> perl, I don't know that.  This all started because the exiftool needed the
> Archive::Zip function.  From there, to me anyway, it all went downhill.

I fell into this - or a similar - trap once and by that time I thought
I know quite a
lot about Perl, CPAN and testing. It was very frustrating.
I bet it is a lot more frustrating and confusing if someone is new to
the Perl and
CPAN world.

I think most of the people will just conclude this whole thing is
broken so I am glad you
asked on the mailing list!


> CPAN shell?  I google searched Archive::Zip, which led me to the cpan page
> for downloading it.  I did.  Of all the README files I've looked at, I didn't
> see any mention of a CPAN shell.

> Keep in mind that you are on the inside looking out.  I'm on the outside
> looking in and only saw what was presented to me.  The README files gave
> instructions on the four things to do.  None said anything about a CPAN shell.

Yeah, I think the "standard" README text we all include in CPAN
modules should probably
have either a more detailed explanation or a link to a page (e.g. on
perl.org or learn.perl.org ?)
that explains the various ways to install CPAN modules
(aptitude, yum, ppm, manually, CPAN.pm, CPANPLUS.pm, local::lib)

regards
    Gabor