Re: newbie seeks advice on cgi.pm

On Tue 03 Jun, [email protected] wrote:
> 
> Goto search.cpan.org and look for CGI.
> CPAN is you friend.

Much to my frustration, I find that CPAN modules rarely
just install and work on RISC OS. Many require a compilation
step which I cannot get to work. Even those that do not require
compilation seem to have failings.

For instance, I had been successfully using HTML::Template
for both CGI applications and whole site generation offline.
Sadly, about a year ago, one of the updates broke the module
on RISC OS. This may have had something to do with its
reliance upon File::Spec which doesn't appear to work
correctly on RISC OS, although I never delved any deeper.
Instead, I just stuck with the earlier version, warts and all.
In my experience, the only sure way of getting bug-free code
is to write it myself. I therefore tend to be wary of using
other people's code.

My point is that it is not wise to rely on modules that are
created and maintained by people who have no knowledge of
the limitations of our platform. This is especially true
when so many modules require other modules in a web of
dependencies. If any of those dependencies change, or any of
those modules require compilation, or introduce a bug, or
start using Perl 5.6 features, etc, then the whole web of
modules suddenly fails to work on RISC OS. It might take you
quite a while to trigger those bugs, and unless you want to
go through the code of all the involved modules looking for
the problem, you're stuck. Don't expect the much lauded
cooperative Perl community to notice and correct such
problems. These module maintainers don't test on RISC OS
and, quite frankly, they are unlikely to care.

Given that we're very much on our own in using RISC OS,
I advise being self-reliant and not reliant upon CPAN.

> A big repository of useful and _never_touch_ modules.

You're absolutely right, never touch them!
Write your own code, it's the only way to be sure.

-- 
James Taylor, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, UK.       PGP key: 3FBE1BF9