How does your module's abstract fare?
I've seen lots of bad module abstracts in CPAN uploads. So today I thought let's make a module to evaluate that (dzil plugin coming "soon"). A proof of concept: CPAN::Critic::Module::Abstract. It's modelled after Perl::Critic, with policies/profiles/themes/severity and all that (albeit simpler and not everything is configurable yet). Sample output:
$ critic-cpan-module-abstract ""
.------------------------------------.
| message | severity |
+-------------------------+----------+
| Violates prohibit_empty | 5 |
'-------------------------+----------'
$ critic-cpan-module-abstract 'The great new Foo::Bar!'
.----------------------------------------------------------.
| message | severity |
+-----------------------------------------------+----------+
| Template from module-starter 'The great new ' | 5 |
'-----------------------------------------------+----------'
$ critic-cpan-module-abstract 'Perl extension for blah blah blah'
.-----------------------------------------------------------------------.
| message | severity |
+------------------------------------------------------------+----------+
| Template from h2xs 'Perl extension for blah blah blah' | 5 |
| Language not detected as English, 35% da (confidence 0.21) | 2 |
| Saying 'Perl extension for' is redundant, omit it | 3 |
'------------------------------------------------------------+----------'
$ critic-cpan-module-abstract 'perl module to smurf some smurf.'
.-----------------------------------------------------------.
| message | severity |
+------------------------------------------------+----------+
| Violates prohibit_ends_with_full_stop | 2 |
| Saying 'perl module to' is redundant, omit it | 3 |
| Violates prohibit_starts_with_lowercase_letter | 2 |
'------------------------------------------------+----------'
$ critic-cpan-module-abstract 'Kami para penulis CPAN'
.-----------------------------------------------------------------------.
| message | severity |
+------------------------------------------------------------+----------+
| Language not detected as English, 28% pt (confidence 0.91) | 2 |
'------------------------------------------------------------+----------'
$ critic-cpan-module-abstract 'THIS MODULE IS SUPER GREAT'
.-----------------------------------------------------------------------.
| message | severity |
+------------------------------------------------------------+----------+
| All-caps | 2 |
| Language not detected as English, 24% it (confidence 0.48) | 2 |
'------------------------------------------------------------+----------'
$ critic-cpan-module-abstract 'Use this module, dammit!!!'
.----------------------------------------.
| message | severity |
+-----------------------------+----------+
| Too many exclamation points | 2 |
'-----------------------------+----------'
To pass at all, you need to not have any violation with severity 5. To be considered as good, you should have as few violations as possible.
TODO: MORE policies, for example: require starts with verb (infinitive), prohibit repeating module name, consistency with other members of module family (e.g. Acme::CPANAuthors:: or Task::BeLike::), check spelling mistakes, check with existing abstracts on CPAN, etc.
A programmer (mostly Perl 5 nowadays).
My CPAN ID: SHARYANTO. I'm sedusedan on perlmonks. My twitter is stevenharyanto (but I don't tweet much). Follow me on github: sharyanto.
This is a great idea. I put a check for "The great new XXX" in the t/boilerplate.t tests created by Module::Starter in hopes of reminding people to update their abstracts.
Clearly, that wasn't as effective as I would have liked: https://www.google.com/search?q="the+great+new"+site%3Asearch.cpan.org
You've forgotten the classic "Yet another".
qr/yet another/i
As well as "Perl module for" and "Perl extension to", there is also "Perl interface for"
qr/(?:a\s+)?perl\s+(module|extension|interface)\s+(to|for)/i
And don't forget "Perl XS binding for".
qr/perl\s+(?:xs\s+)?binding\s+(?:for|to)?/i
Also, check for capitalization of the initial letter?
By the way, was "Critic CPAN module abstract" meant to be a joke?
I love this idea!
Sad to say that I fall foul of a few rules presented here through ignorance. How was one supposed to know not to end an abstract with a full stop? Now it's clear, and all is good with the world!
I think there are a couple of valid "Yet another" entries since that is what the author call the module, e.g. "Yet Another Template Processor" (HTML::YaTmpl). Naming something "Yet Another ..." is yet another meme.
A matter of style, I guess, though one can argue against it in cases like "phpMyAdmin installer" or "mSQL DBI driver". The policy can be turned off if unwanted.
Do you mean the CLI script critic-cpan-module-abstract? Nope, my personal convention is to name scripts and subroutines using verb + object.
And of course I'm wrong, since the verb is critique. Memory of high school English class coming back... Thanks, Ben.