The document discusses strategies for maintaining CPAN modules. It notes that while having 24 modules on CPAN may not seem like many compared to others, it is enough to require maintenance. It recommends using tools like RT, GitHub, and automated testing to help with bug tracking, source control, and ensuring code quality during the maintenance process. Maintaining modules can be made easier by utilizing existing tools and getting help from the Perl community.

1. Maintaining CPAN Modules

2. Dave Cross [email_address]

3. CPAN is Perl's Killer App

4. 16,645 modules 7,695 authors 6,129 MB 244 mirrors

5. I have 24 distributions on CPAN

6. Array::Compare AudioFile::Info AudioFile::Info::MP3::ID3Lib Audiofile::Info::MP3::Info AudioFile::Info::MP3::Tag AudioFile::Info::Ogg::Vorbis::Header AudioFile::Info::Ogg::Vorbis::Header::PurePerl Calendar::Simple Guardian::OpenPlatform::API Net::Backpack Number::Fraction Parse::RPM::Spec Perlanet Symbol::Approx::Sub Template::Plugin::AudioFile::Info Template::Plugin::RPM2 Template::Plugin::XML::Feed Tie::Hash::Cannabinol Tie::Hash::FixedKeys Tie::Hash::Regex WWW::Shorten WWW::Shorten::Qurl WWW::Shorten::Qwer WWW::Shorten::SnipURL

7. Not actually a huge number

8. MIYAGAWA has 149 ADAMK has 201

9. But 24 is enough to make maintenance a chore

10. Some things you don't need to worry about

11. Distribution

12. Installation

13. Testing

14. Cross-platform Testing

15. Some things you do need to worry about

16. Bug tracking

17. Source code control

18. Maintenance and enhancements

19. So what do you do?

20. Get help

21. Use other people's tools

22. Bug tracking

23. RT is awesome

24. Every CPAN module gets an RT queue

25. rt.cpan.org

26. Mention that in your module documentation

27. You'll still get email

28. RT accepts reports by mail

29. TIP: Redirect, don't forward

30. TIP: Send bugs to yourself

31. Use RT to remember everything you need to do to your modules

32. Source code control

33. I used to host my own Subversion repository

34. Far too much like hard work

35. Git is Good

36. Github is Great

37. Free source code repository for Open Source projects

38. Distributed source code control

39. Easy for people to fork and patch your code

40. Patches are better than bug reports

41. Patches with associated tests are even better

42. Github also gives you a wiki

43. Github also gives you a bug tracker

44. I ♥ Github

45. Maintenance and Enhancement

46. Let's trace a typical change

47. Change request comes in

48. RT ticket or CPAN test failure or I have an idea

49. Check out latest revision from Github

50. Write tests

51. Yes Write tests before writing code

52. Tests tell you when you are finished

53. Write code until tests pass

54. Write tests until ALL tests pass

55. Don't care which editor you use

56. But use a decent programmer's editor

57. Take time to configure it to your tastes

58. Have tests to test quality of distribution

59. Test::Pod Test::Pod::Coverage Devel::Cover

60. Tools to monitor quality of code

61. Perl::Tidy Perl::Critic

62. Commit changes to Github

63. Tag for release e.g. RELEASE_1.07

64. Build distribution upload to CPAN (cpan-upload)

65. PAUSE takes care of the rest

66. I also release to my web site code.mag-sol.com

67. Code available on Github github.com/davorg

68. Brief aside on building distributions

69. ExtUtils::MakeMaker Module::Build Module::Install

70. Helpful stuff on CPAN that I should really investigate

71. Module::Starter

72. Module::Release

73. Maintaining CPAN module need not be hard work

74. This is supposed to be fun

75. Plenty of help out there

76. Plenty of tools to use

77. Please join in