Perl5 CPAN Module Metadata Best Practices
When I started working at SUSE, one of the first things I worked on is the maintenance of the perl modules repository in the openSUSE Build Service (OBS).
We are using a tool called cpanspec
to create .spec files from CPAN modules. From the spec file, the OBS then
builds rpm packages.
I noticed there are a lot of modules missing information, or having other
problems that prevent us from automatically create a working .spec file.
Perl has a great testing infrastructure. This helps us to see if the failures we get in OBS are present on other setups and platforms.
CPAN/PAUSE is not very strict on how a distribution should look like, though. That makes creating OS specific packages automatically harder.
Whenever I see a mistake in a CPAN module, and I have time, I try to file a bug report.
But since I came across the same common mistakes over and over, I decided to put up a page with a list of Best Practices that make it possible for most modules to be turned into a OS package automatically:
Best Practices for creating Perl5 CPAN Modules
But I need your help.
I think it would be useful to create more concrete examples.
For specific items it would make sense to link to a more detailed
tutorial.
For example, many issues can be solved by using
Dist::Zilla and the correct entries in
the dist.ini.
I would be glad if, for example, Debian people could add a similar paragraph like I did for openSUSE.
Looking forward to suggestions, bug reports and pull requests
just another perl punk,
How does this relate to the contents of perlmodstyle? I'd then check the kwalatee metrics and ensure that Test::Quality touches all elements in your list. As with most things in life, CPAN obeys the Pareto principle. IMHO a better effort would be to target modules that are part of Task::Kensho and then suplement with others that have a high enough kwalatee.
Just my my thoughts.