Acme-CPANModules-Import-CPANRatings-User-stevenharyanto
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This is a well-designed module with a good interface. The core
system()'s behavior of whether to invoke shell or not depending on
the number of arguments is ... unfortunate. This module fixes that.
<br><br>However, the previous review's comparing of
IPC::System::Simple with IPC::Run or IPC::Simple is rather
misguided. They focus on different things: IPC::System::Simple
focuses on providing shell/no-shell versions of invoking commands
and making a command's result easier to parse. It does not support
feeding text to STDIN, handlers for STDOUT/STDERR, timeouts, or the
other features that IPC::{Run,Cmd} support.
IPC::Cmd
Author: BINGOS <https://metacpan.org/author/BINGOS>
IPC::Cmd does its job, but the interface is inconsistent, probably
because a different author wrote run_forked() (and didn't follow the
same convention). run() accepts a hash of arguments, but
run_forked() accepts a scalar + hashref. run() returns a list, but
run_forked() returns a hashref. Command in run_forked() cannot be an
arrayref, but in run() it can be.
Umask::Local
Author: ROUZIER <https://metacpan.org/author/ROUZIER>
Please consider a simpler non-OO interface instead, a la
File::chdir: <br><br>use File::Umask; # or whatever, the
"Local" thing is redundant <br> { <br><br>local $UMASK =
0077; <br><br>open(...); <br><br>copy(...); <br> } <br> =head1
previous umask is restored
<br><br>which is arguably better (to me at least) than the current:
<br><br>use Umask::Local; <br> { <br><br>my $umask_local =
Umask::Local->new(0077); <br><br>open(...); <br><br>copy(...);
<br> } <br> =head1 previous umask is restored
<br>
Proc::PidUtil
Author: MIKER <https://metacpan.org/author/MIKER>
No file locking is currently done to the PID file to avoid race
condition. Look at Proc::PID::File for a more proper implementation.
<br><br>
Data::Dumper::Sorted
Author: MIKER <https://metacpan.org/author/MIKER>
Unnecessary. Data::Dumper does have the option to sort hash keys
($Sortkeys, look for 'sort' in 'perldoc Data::Dumper'). <br><br>This
module also does not handle circular refs yet (and probably lacks
other features of Data::Dumper too). <br><br>Also the choice of
returning error ("$Var00 = not a reference" when given
Dumper(1) for example) as result is arguably unwise. <br>
Archive::Probe
Author: FGZ <https://metacpan.org/author/FGZ>
I would personally pick a non-OO, no-nonsense interface based on
File::Find, like: <br><br>use File::Find::Archive qw(find); # or
find_archive <br> find(sub { ... }, "some.tar.gz");
<br><br>instead of the multiline, tedious setup just to search a
file. <br>
App::DBBrowser
Author: KUERBIS <https://metacpan.org/author/KUERBIS>
A nice, minimalistic, terminal-based user interface for browsing
your database and tables. Might be useful for simple cases.
<br><br>It would be *much* more useful if usernames/passwords,
queries, and other settings can be saved in a config/session file.
<br>
Locale::Maketext
Author: TODDR <https://metacpan.org/author/TODDR>
Users might want to check out this article on why one should perhaps
use Locale::TextDomain instead of Locale::Maketext: <a
href="http://www.perladvent.org/2013/2013-12-09.html"
rel="nofollow">www.perladvent.org/2013/2013-12-09.html</a>
Curses::Toolkit
Nice effort, but one might also want to look at Tickit, which is not
curses-based and looks more promising. Being based on Curses, this
module still suffers from the many bugs and limitations of curses.
The lack of Shift-Tab support, for one. <br><br>See also: <a
href="http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=1059926"
rel="nofollow">www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=1059926</a> <br><br>As I
explore doing TUI more, I will update the reviews. <br>
Moo::Lax
Author: DAMS <https://metacpan.org/author/DAMS>
Great idea! I've been bitten and annoyed by strictures on more than
one occasion. It has its uses, but users should have a choice on how
to react to warnings. <br>
App::YTDL
This module is based on WWW::YouTube::Download but its documentation
does not yet explain how it differs from WWW::YouTube::Download.
From what I see at a glance, App::YTDL supports downloading a video
from a playlist and setting download speed limit, but perhaps the
author should do the mode detailed explaining to help users when to
choose between the two. <br>
Data::CompactDump
Author: MILSO <https://metacpan.org/author/MILSO>
At the current form, simply too simplistic to be an alternative to
Data::Dump or Data::Dumper. No support for blessed refs,
filehandle/globs, circular references, and so on. Changes numbers to
stringy numbers or vice versa. <br><br>Currently also contains some
bugs like for -1 (changes it to string), "\" (produces
invalid dump, does not handle backslash yet currently), <br><br>And
Data::Dump's dump of {} and [] are currently more compact ;-)
<br><br>Need to be improved significantly first. But keep up the
effort.
P Author: LAWALSH <https://metacpan.org/author/LAWALSH>
I personally don't mind the namespace choice. There are other
single-letter CPAN modules too like B, L, U, V. If you have a beef
with regard to namespace, don't single out P and perhaps downvote
the other modules too. <br><br>Having said that, I would like to
comment on the design and implementation of this module. <br><br>1)
The choice of Unicode character U+2204 as representation of undef.
Unless one does something like 'binmode STDOUT, ":utf8"',
with 'say P undef' I am just trading one warning ("Use of
uninitialized value") with another ("Wide character in
say/print"). The wide character warning is avoided if you do 'P
"%s", undef' though, which means... <br><br>2) P loads
utf8 by default. For ultra-lightweight cases, this is sometimes not
desirable. There is currently no way to turn this off. <br><br>3)
The arbitrary choice of three levels deep when printing references.
This can be customized but with an unusual syntax. But again, the
arbitrary choice of three. <br><br>4) The "complex" rules
of newline printing. p() is like puts, it can optionally add a
newline. But unlike puts, the doc says it can also remove newlines.
The behavior can also change if the string to be printed ends with
0x83. <br><br>I might use P for a sprintf/printf replacement, but
for debugging values, I'd prefer something "dumber" like
Data::Dump::Color (or Data::Printer, if that's your thing).
Xporter
Author: LAWALSH <https://metacpan.org/author/LAWALSH>
A couple of comments. First, if you want to import the default
exports *as well as* some additional others, you can use Exporter's
feature (the :DEFAULT tag): <br><br>use SomeModule qw(:DEFAULT a b
c); <br><br>or you can also "use" twice: <br><br>use
SomeModule; # imports default exports <br><br>use SomeModule qw(a b
c); # import a, b, c <br><br>Second, if you use Xporter, your module
will behave unlike most CPAN modules out there, because a majority
of modules use Exporter. When people see this Perl code: <br><br>use
SomeModule qw(a b c); <br><br>normally they will expect only a, b,
and c are exported. If SomeModule uses Xporter, it will also by
default export the default exports. <br><br>Basically Xporter is
just Exporter with a different default (not arguably better or more
user-friendly). For the sake of minimizing surprise to my users, I
would avoid the use of Xporter. <br><br>UPDATE 2014-01-24: some
edits. I appreciate the effort of the author to defend her module,
though I am not convinced by her arguments.
Nice tool that lets you type dzil commands like 'build', 'test', etc
while sending all the other unknown commands like 'ls -l', 'man Foo'
to the underlying shell. Also lets you avoid multiple startup
overhead of dzil :-)
CPANPLUS::Shell::Curses
Author: MARCUS <https://metacpan.org/author/MARCUS>
Unmaintained. Installs but no longer runs.
Rating: 2/10
Task::Mechanistic
If you peek into its Makefile.PL, you'll see a seemingly
random/heterogenous collection of modules to install (instead of
just WWW::Mechanize). This is probably a Task::BeLike::$AUTHOR in
disguise. <br><br>
Sereal
Author: YVES <https://metacpan.org/author/YVES>
So far the best of the bunch. <br><br>FAST: much faster than
Storable, roughly the same speed as (sometimes slightly faster than)
Data::Clone for cloning. <br><br>FEATUREFUL: Can handle circular
references, Regexp objects (trips out-of-the-box Storable),
JSON::{PP,XS}::Boolean objects (trips Data::Clone). <br><br>COMPACT:
definitely more compact (up to several times) than Storable.
<br><br>I'm sold. What more do you want? Le Storable est mort, vive
le Sereal!
Test::Tester
Author: EXODIST <https://metacpan.org/author/EXODIST>
If you write test functions, you need this. It's like the
"Test::More" for "Test::More". However, it
currently does not work out of the box with subtests (submitted as
wishlist to RT). <br><br>PS: Thanks to Toby Inkster for pointing
this module out. <br><br>
Text::CharWidth
Author: KUBOTA <https://metacpan.org/author/KUBOTA>
It's faster than Unicode::GCString->new($str)->columns, but it
gives wrong answers to lots of characters, e.g. control characters
like "\n", "\t", etc are currently assumed to
have width of -1 character. You're better off with
Unicode::GCString.
Rating: 2/10
App::Options
Author: SPADKINS <https://metacpan.org/author/SPADKINS>
2010-10-13: <br><br>I admit, this is not the most flexible
configuration framework out there as it enforces some convention.
And I don't/can't use it on every project. But it's certainly one of
the easiest. You can slap a few lines of options declaration in your
code and voila, your script suddenly can accept command line
arguments, has --help message et al, read from config files (in
several preset locations). <br><br>There are still a few annoyances
(I submitted them in the RT), but in general, this is a very handy
module to use for lazy coders who just want to accept
configuration/options from outside the code. <br><br><shameless
plug>I'm trying to do somewhat the same with Config::Tree, but as
of now the module is not really done yet.</shameless plug>
<br><br>UPDATE 2013-08-15: <br><br>I'm reducing the ratings from 5
to 2. I've now avoided using this module due to two lingering issue
since 2010: 1) App::Options does not accept '--opt val', only
'--opt=val' which is incompatible with how most command-line
programs work, causing confusion for some of my users. 2) 'perl -c'
doesn't work under this module, it will still trigger command-line
processing. <br><br>I'm now using Perinci::CmdLine as replacement,
but I cannot recommend it in general, as the two modules are not
equivalent.
Rating: 4/10
Filesys::Notify::Simple
Author: MIYAGAWA <https://metacpan.org/author/MIYAGAWA>
It's rather unfortunate that currently the choice for general
purpose cross-platform filesystem notification modules on CPAN falls
between this module (FNS) or File::ChangeNotify (F::CN). The other
CPAN modules are either OS-/framework-specific. <br><br>FNS has a
simple API but is perhaps too simple for some uses, while F::CN uses
Moose and has a big startup overhead. <br><br>If you simply want to
check from time to time whether a change has occured, you need to
wrap the wait() method with alarm(). And I found on my Linux PC that
I need a timeout of at least 3 seconds for this to work reliably.
Rating: 8/10
experimental
Author: LEONT <https://metacpan.org/author/LEONT>
Vote +1 to add this to core. Please make coding in Perl 5 relatively
painless.
MIME::Lite::HTML
Author: ALIAN <https://metacpan.org/author/ALIAN>
Very straightforward to use (I needed to send a URL/webpage as HTML
email with embedded images/objects). With this module I can finish
my job with only a few lines of Perl in 3-5 minutes (searching for
this module in CPAN takes more than that! searching using "mail
web" or "email url" at first didn't get results).
<br><br>Blackberry is having trouble displaying the resulting email
though. No problem with Gmail or Thunderbird/Icedove.
Term::Size
Author: FERREIRA <https://metacpan.org/author/FERREIRA>
5-year old bug like RT#38594 still present. Use one of the alternate
implementations like Term::Size::{Unix,Win32,ReadKey}. <br>
Rating: 2/10
DateTime::Format::Flexible
Author: THINC <https://metacpan.org/author/THINC>
I'm giving DateTime::Format::Natural 3 stars because while it's
great for English (it covers more phrases than
DateTime::Format::Flexible), it's also hard to translate. Look at
the source code for DateTime::Format::Natural::Lang::EN: lots of
Englishisms and weird structures (%grammars). Wonder why so far
there has not been any translations to another language? <br>
Rating: 6/10
App::sourcepan
Author: PEVANS <https://metacpan.org/author/PEVANS>
Thanks, just what I needed. (I was hoping cpanm would accept my
--download patch, but this is just as well). <br><br>It still uses
CPAN.pm and thus downloads the relatively big 01mailrc.txt.gz and
02packages.details.txt.gz file, thus slowing the first use. If you
use cpanm exclusively, this is rather annoying especially if you're
on a slow link.
Rating: 8/10
Text::ASCIITable::TW
The method of determining visual width of Chinese characters is
rather hackish. Text::ASCIITable should perhaps use Text::CharWidth
(which can be used to determine visual width of text in other
languages e.g. Japanese, etc) thus rendering this module
unnecessary. <br>
Text::VisualWidth
Author: NANZOU <https://metacpan.org/author/NANZOU>
Also look at Text::CharWidth for an alternative that can be used
with text in other languages (Chinese, etc). <br>
Text::VisualWidth::PP
Author: TOKUHIROM <https://metacpan.org/author/TOKUHIROM>
Also look at Text::CharWidth for an alternative that can be used
with text in other languages (Chinese, etc). <br>
Taint::Runtime
Author: RHANDOM <https://metacpan.org/author/RHANDOM>
Nice idea. Perl should really have included something like this
(analogous to warnings.pm for -w). <br><br>However, for something as
security-related as tainting, I personally think the interface is a
bit too complex and not robust enough. There are too many pitfalls
where one can fail to turn on tainting properly. <br><br>* First,
user must remember to import $TAINT, or doing '$TAINT = 1' has no
effect. There's no error/warning for this mistake. <br><br>* Then,
if one also forgets to import taint_start or taint_start, then doing
'taint_start' or 'taint_env' (without parentheses) will do nothing.
Also does not produce an error/warning except under strict mode.
<br><br>* One must remember to 'taint_env' *after* 'taint_start'.
There's no warning/error if one does the opposite. <br><br>I'd
rather have something like this: <br><br>{ <br><br>use tainting;
<br><br>... code is running in taint mode ... <br> } <br><br>use
tainting; <br> { <br><br>no tainting; <br><br>... code is running
without taint mode ... <br> } <br><br>No functions, no variables to
set, no exports. Tainting of %ENV etc should be done automatically
just like -T. <br><br>EDIT: I wrote tainting and uploaded it to CPAN
as proof of concept.
Rating: 8/10
L Author: SONGMU <https://metacpan.org/author/SONGMU>
Reinvents Class::Autouse (written 12 years ago). But at least L is
much simpler and shorter to type (the equivalent of -ML is
-MClass::Autouse=:superloader). <br><br>BTW, there's also
Module::AutoLoad, Module::AutoINC, and lib::xi which can
automatically install modules from CPAN and load them upon first
use.
UNIVERSAL::moniker
Author: KASEI <https://metacpan.org/author/KASEI>
Perl is not Ruby != everything Ruby does is horrible. This module
has its uses.
Time::Out
Author: PATL <https://metacpan.org/author/PATL>
A wrapper around Perl's alarm()/$SIG{ALRM}, so it has the same
limitations, e.g. you cannot use this to properly timeout external
programs started by system()/backtick. For the latter, you might
want to try IPC::Cmd (run() or run_forked()), or some simpler
interface for it like System::Timeout. <br><br>
Util::Timeout
Author: NOTBENH <https://metacpan.org/author/NOTBENH>
A wrapper around Perl's alarm()/$SIG{ALRM}, so it has the same
limitations, e.g. you cannot use this to properly timeout external
programs started by system()/backtick. For the latter, you might
want to try IPC::Cmd (run() or run_forked()), or some simpler
interface for it like System::Timeout. <br><br>
System::Timeout
Author: CHENGANG <https://metacpan.org/author/CHENGANG>
This is a thin wrapper over IPC::Cmd's run(). I'd personally use
run() directly, it's not much harder or longer to type. Plus,
IPC::Cmd is a core module. <br><br>
Module::Quote
Author: TOBYINK <https://metacpan.org/author/TOBYINK>
Wouldn't a function like
load_module("Math::Module")->new(42) be more obvious?
Is there a specific goal for using custom quote operator (which
requires Devel::Declare, and thus a C compiler to build)? <br>
Module::Hash
Author: TOBYINK <https://metacpan.org/author/TOBYINK>
Wouldn't a function like
load_module("Math::Module")->new(42) be more obvious?
Is there a specific goal for using a tied hash (since there is
already %INC)?
Rating: 8/10
Data::Compare
Author: DCANTRELL <https://metacpan.org/author/DCANTRELL>
Pros: handle hashes as well as arrays, handle nested and cyclic
structure, plugins. <br><br>Cons: No cmp-like functionality
(returning -1, 0, 1), slow (even slower than Array::Compare).
<br><br>See also: Array::Compare, JSON/YAML/Storable. <br>
Rating: 6/10
Array::Compare
Author: DAVECROSS <https://metacpan.org/author/DAVECROSS>
Pros: has a perm() function to check whether the two arrays contain
the same things but in different order (although you can simply just
run sort() over the arrays first). Allow skipping some elements from
comparison. <br><br>Cons: no cmp-like functionality (returning -1,
0, 1), slow (for equality test, you might as well compare the
json_encode() result of the arrays, which is way faster), no nested
comparison. No procedural interface. <br><br>See also:
Data::Compare, JSON/YAML/Storable.
Rating: 4/10
Mozilla::Mechanize
Author: SLANNING <https://metacpan.org/author/SLANNING>
No longer builds (tested on a current Debian). A pity, since drop-in
replacements for WWW::Mechanize (using different backend like curl,
IE, Mozilla, Chrome, etc) might be handy. <br><br>
LWP::Curl
Author: LORN <https://metacpan.org/author/LORN>
Those looking for LWP drop-in replacement might want to take a look
at the recently released LWP::Protocol::Net::Curl instead, which
supports WWW::Mechanize. <br><br>
LWP::Protocol::Net::Curl
Author: SYP <https://metacpan.org/author/SYP>
Shows great promise. I personally need this for HTTPS proxy support.
After testing, the module still doesn't work to login to my internet
banking sites. But I'll still check in from time to time. <br>
Devel::SizeMe
Author: TIMB <https://metacpan.org/author/TIMB>
Wow, just wow. Hopefully now that we can use this tool to know how
big things are, we are encouraged to create leaner, faster, more
efficient Perl modules.
Oktest
Author: KWATCH <https://metacpan.org/author/KWATCH>
A reinvention of Perl testing modules (it even comes with an
equivalent for 'prove' command), with probably no added features and
some added quirks. (Nested) topic can already be done using
Test::More's subtests. Filtering and setup/teardown can be done with
Test::Class. And I am supposed to replace specific assertion
functions (with specific, helpful error messages) like is(), isnt(),
like(), is_deeply(), etc with just OK()? <br>
Rating: 4/10
HTML::Escape
Author: TOKUHIROM <https://metacpan.org/author/TOKUHIROM>
Still a bit slower than PHP's htmlspecialchars(), but in the same
ballpark. An order of magnitude faster than HTML::Entities. Does not
provide unescaping, but it's okay since escaping is the majority of
use cases.
Clone::Fast
Casual benchmarking on my PC shows that Data::Clone is up to twice
faster than this.
Rating: 6/10
Perl::Strip
Author: MLEHMANN <https://metacpan.org/author/MLEHMANN>
Balancing previous unhelpful review. Slowish (can't complain,
PPI-based) but works and comes with a command-line utility.
<br><br>Beware though that the command-line utility modifies file in
place without backup, without warning, and without option to create
backup. <br>
Rating: 8/10
Perl::Squish
Author: ADAMK <https://metacpan.org/author/ADAMK>
Have failed to build for 1.5 years (reported bug RT#66958 left
untouched, users need to install Module::Install first). No usage
documentation. <br><br>
Rating: 2/10
perlsecret
Author: BOOK <https://metacpan.org/author/BOOK>
Nice collection of perl shortcuts. Today I forgot about the name for
"x!!" and nicely found it in this module.
PerlX::ArraySkip
Author: TOBYINK <https://metacpan.org/author/TOBYINK>
Cute idea as always, though I'd rather use comments rather than
taking multiple sub calls hit.
App::perlfind
Author: MARCEL <https://metacpan.org/author/MARCEL>
A timesaver. Using it on a daily basis (aliased to "pod").
Thanks, Marcel!
PerlX::Maybe
Author: TOBYINK <https://metacpan.org/author/TOBYINK>
A nice syntax addition for avoiding passing or writing a bunch of
undefs. More convenient to write than using ternary operator or
grep. I'm beginning to adore syntax modules like this (as long as it
adds negligible overhead). <br><br>
File::Path::Tiny
Author: DMUEY <https://metacpan.org/author/DMUEY>
I like the concept, but do not like the overly short names mk() and
rm(). Instead of mk(), how about mkdir_p() or mkpath() like in
File::Path. Instead of rm(), how about rm_r() or rmtree() like in
File::Path. <br>
Rating: 6/10
Exporter::Lite
Author: NEILB <https://metacpan.org/author/NEILB>
2011-10-04: I am now using Exporter::Lite exclusively instead of
Exporter. Got bit once by Exporter when using for an OO module due
to clash of assigning to @ISA vs 'use base'. +1 for putting it into
core. <br><br>EDIT 2012-08-08: Nowadays I revert back to Exporter
most of the time because Exporter is core. To avoid @ISA issue, one
simply needs to import import() instead setting @ISA: <br><br>use
Exporter qw(import); <br>
YAML::Syck
Author: TODDR <https://metacpan.org/author/TODDR>
To be fair, in my experience YAML::Syck is not "much more
buggy" than ::XS. It even sometimes works with my YAML data
while ::XS crashes. Go figure.
Devel::FindPerl
Author: LEONT <https://metacpan.org/author/LEONT>
IMO the module should explain in the POD, in what cases using $^X is
not enough or how it is different from Probe::Perl. <br><br>Anyway,
quoting CPAN Testers' CPAN Authors FAQ, $^X is not enough when: <br>
1) perl was executed with a relative path and the script has
chdir()ed; 2) because $^X originates in C's argv[0] (in the main()
function) it is possible for the calling program to exec() in such a
way that argv[0] isn't the path to the interpreter; 3) HP/UX can do
weird stuff in scripts that use #!; 4) VMS. (Not clear about #4
though :) ).
Taint::Util
Author: AVAR <https://metacpan.org/author/AVAR>
IMO this is the best module to deal with tainting. BTW there are
several other modules like Taint (only provides taint + tainted, no
untaint), Untaint (only provides untaint with awkward interface,
like $v = untaint(qr/.../, $v)), Scalar::Util (only provides
tainted), Test::Taint (does not provide untaint but provides
taint_deeply and test predicates), and several others.
Markdown::Pod
Author: KEEDI <https://metacpan.org/author/KEEDI>
I use Markdown::Pod for my module Perinci::To::POD. <br><br>This
module does not output proper POD for many (not so) edge cases,
like: <br><br>">" and the likes are not yet escaped, producing
C<>> when it should have been C<< > >> or
C<E<gt>>. <br><br>Ordered list numbering does not yet
work, e.g. "2. ...\n3. ...\n" produces "=item 1. ...
=item 1. ..." <br><br>Ordered list with item numbered other
than 1 does not work (see above). This should be supported in POD
because POD allows us to write the bullets/numbers for each item.
<br><br>Inline markup is not smart enough to differentiate
word_with_underscore. So "foo_bar and foo_baz" becomes
"fooI<bar and foo>baz". <br><br>Plus it segfaults
sometimes (might be my perl though).
Rating: 4/10
Lingua::Metadata
Author: MAJLIS <https://metacpan.org/author/MAJLIS>
As previous reviewer noted, this module is actually just a front-end
to the author's web service. Plus license is specifically BSD (which
allows this module to be included in closed source projects), this
is rather ironic to me. <br>
Finance::Currency::Convert::WebserviceX
DateTime::BusinessHours
Author: BRICAS <https://metacpan.org/author/BRICAS>
Just tried it. It works, but the module/dist is not in the best
shape: <br><br>* Test fails (pod-coverage, error in POD) <br><br>*
dependency on Class::MethodMaker not yet specified <br><br>*
Documentation: Synopsis contains mistake (class name is
DateTime::BusinessHours not BusinessHours), the name '$testing' is
not very suitable, there are typos. <br><br>* Style-wise, method
naming is "joinedwords", while in DateTime families it's
"separated_words" (not a big deal though). <br><br>
Rating: 6/10
Bundle::Dpchrist
Every once in a while everyone of us encounters a programmer that
disregards existing reusable code and creates his/her own
"standard library" for everything, from trimming string to
creating random number to cleaning the kitchen sink. We all might
have been one too, at one time or another. I'm not saying that this
bundle is a case of the above, but it's giving me a similar feeling.
:-) <br><br>A commendable effort, David. But there really are a lot
of wheels being reinvented here.
Net::BitTorrent::File
Author: ORCLEV <https://metacpan.org/author/ORCLEV>
I mass download stuffs by putting a bunch of torrent files in a
directory on the server and let rtorrent takes care of them. With
this module I can quickly whip up a short script to calculate the
total size of the downloadable files so I can be pretty sure that
when I leave my server for days/weeks, I don't run out of disk space
because I put in too many torrent files. <br>
Module::CoreList
Author: BINGOS <https://metacpan.org/author/BINGOS>
Wow, I was thinking the same exact "godsend" too and turns
out some other reviewer already said so. Very very helpful to assist
deployment and pick modules to use. I personally made a couple of
command-line scripts like pm-in-core or core-since-when to save some
typing. <br>
WWW::Mechanize
Author: SIMBABQUE <https://metacpan.org/author/SIMBABQUE>
WWW::Mechanize is of course one of the indispensable tools for any
web programmer or admin. The current problem is the proliferation of
3rd party subclasses, the functionalities of which cannot be used
together. So you want a polite Mechanize which does
self-rate-limiting and uses the Firefox or IE engine? A subclass
exists for each feature, but how do you use them together?
WWW::Mechanize needs to be more role/plugin-oriented instead of
inheritance-oriented. <br>
Mail::Sendmail
Author: NEILB <https://metacpan.org/author/NEILB>
I used Mail::Sendmail and a few others "older" modules
back from the days when it didn't support setting envelope sender
different from RFC From, and when the test hung on some dead host.
<br><br>If it's still working for you, great. I personally have
moved on to other modules like Email::Sender::Simple, which
abstracts sending mechanism (transport) and support SMTP auth, for
two. Also, many of the guide/documentation for Mail::Sendmail are
not quite up to date in style (though they still might work), for
example the low level way of building HTML email. Also, the
Changelog file doesn't seem to be maintained?
Rating: 6/10
autodie
Author: TODDR <https://metacpan.org/author/TODDR>
I started using autodie in almost all of my applications a few
months ago. It's somewhat of a mixed blessing. For existing
applications, it can break things and making things less robust,
solely because old code are not built with autodie in mind.
<br><br>But the best thing about it is that it's lexically scoped,
so for sections of code that you're not sure about, just sprinkle
'no autodie' to get the old behaviour. <br><br>It should be used on
probably 95% of code out there. For the rest of the cases, where you
need to report the status of each I/O operation, it's obviously more
convenient to check $? instead of trapping exception everytime.
<br><br>+1 for getting it into core. <br>
App::FileTools::BulkRename
Disclaimer: I maintain a "competitor" module, App::perlmv.
Apparently a lot of people, like me, likes to rename files using
Perl. And the examples in the documentation are about renaming movie
files too, something which I do a lot :) <br><br>I applaud Stirling
Westrup for taking a legacy script and improving it. May we have a
lot of ideas to borrow from each other. <br><br>This is an early
release, there are quite a few things I find lacking. Most
importantly, I suggest adding a test suite as soon as possible. The
filesystem differences can be tricky, and CPAN Testers can help
providing feedback. <br><br>Keep up the good work.
Rating: 8/10
Script::State
Author: MOTEMEN <https://metacpan.org/author/MOTEMEN>
Nice idea, straight and simple interface. A better name could
perhaps be chosen? Documentation should be expanded, e.g. to warn
users about security, since Data::Dumper a.k.a. eval() is used to
load variable content. Also, the implementation does not yet
consider file locking.
PathTools
I guess File::Spec's API is sane enough, but I suspect not a lot of
people are using it because there's not enough incentive for it.
When 99% population of the world use Unix/Linux/Windows (even Macs
been technically Unix for a number of years), "/" works
everywhere and using File::Spec does not gain you anything except
lots of typing exercise. <br><br>That's why I think Path::Class
might have a better chance of succeeding. It gives niceties like a
few more convenience methods, a shortcut of getting dir & file
object from each other, etc. It gives users more incentive of using
a proper path manipulation library because it gives extra stuff
This logging framework is also minimalistic: no
categories/hierarchiecal loggers, no custom levels, no config file,
or other whistles and bells. And the interface & default levels
are rather syslog-oriented. But it's fast alright. The POD doesn't
mention a comparison to Log::Log4perl, but a casual benchmark shows
that it's at least 10x faster. <br><br>So this module will certainly
come handy if you have a performance critical application.
<br><br>Btw, note that the benchmarks are done for actual logging to
output. For log statements that do not actually get logged (e.g.
because the level is below the desired output level), I don't find
that extreme differences in overhead between logging frameworks. For
example, on my Athlon64 X2 5600+ PC, Log::Fast's overhead is roughly
around 3mils/sec, while Log::Log4perl is around 1,5mils/sec.
Log::Minimal
Author: KAZEBURO <https://metacpan.org/author/KAZEBURO>
Log::Minimal's slogan is "minimal but customizable". It's
minimal alright, probably only suitable for simple scripts as the
moment you organize your application/library into separate modules,
you'll want/need categories instead of just level, which is not
provided by Log::Minimal. <br><br>Also, only formats is
customizable, there is currently no way to customize level. And the
levels are "not standard" (not that there is an official
authoritative standard, but the popular convention is
TRACE/DEBUG/INFO/WARN/ERROR/FATAL and NONE). Log::Minimal's levels
are <br> DEBUG/INFO/WARN/CRITICAL and NONE). Surely most people
would expect another level between WARN and CRITICAL, for
non-critical errors? But that is actually just a matter of taste.
<br>
Rating: 4/10
Log::Fine
Author: CFUHRMAN <https://metacpan.org/author/CFUHRMAN>
Log::Fine is touted as a framework for those who "need a
fine-grained logging mechanism in their program(s)". But apart
from the emphasis on custom levels, to me there is nothing extra
fine-grained about it. The other thing it provides is
categories/namespace, which is also supported by a lot of other
frameworks. So I fail to see the benefit/uniqueness of Log::Fine.
<br><br>Btw regarding custom levels, this practice is long
deprecated by log4j (and thus also by Log4perl, although Log4perl
can do custom levels). I can understand this decision as I sometimes
already have trouble managing the popular convention of 6 levels
(FATAL/ERROR/WARN/INFO/DEBUG/TRACE) as it is, much less with custom
levels!
Rating: 6/10
Config::IniFiles
Author: SHLOMIF <https://metacpan.org/author/SHLOMIF>
This module has been developed for more than a decade and seen
different maintainers over the years. The codebase is indeed showing
these, with different capitalization and indentation styles, among
other things. <br><br>However, among more than a dozen or so of INI
modules in CPAN, ironically there seems to be few other choices if
you go beyond the most basic feature set. Some INI modules can only
simplistically rewrite/dump the whole INI structure and thus lose
comments/orders, while others can't even write INI files.
<br><br>Config::IniFiles by far offers the most options and
features, like dealing with line continuation, case sensitivity,
default section, multiline/array, deltas, etc. So for now, despite
all of its quirks, this module is still hard to beat.
<br><br>There's another nice little INI module that can do
read/set/delete/unset (instead of just read/dump): Prima::IniFile,
but it is included in a totally unrelated distribution.
Rating: 8/10
DateTime
Author: DROLSKY <https://metacpan.org/author/DROLSKY>
Amidst all the glowing reviews may I add a reminder that, as with
everything, there's a catch: runtime performance. On my PC, the
speed of creating a DateTime object is just around 6000/sec. If you
use DateTime intensively, it can quickly add up. <br><br>Imagine
serving a web page that fetches 50 rows from database, where for
convenience you convert each date column to a DateTime object, and
you have 120 requests/sec coming in... That's already 6000 objects
(an extra second!). <br><br>Which is unfortunate because DateTime is
so wonderful, convenient, correct, complete and all that. So one
approach you can use might be to delay converting to DateTime object
until necessary.
Date::Manip
Author: SBECK <https://metacpan.org/author/SBECK>
Wow, there are surely a lot of negative reviews ... <br><br>First of
all, Date::Manip has a long history. I used this module back in
2001-2002, IIRC. Back then it was *the* swiss army of date/time
manipulation, something you use when you want the most
flexible/complete thing in Perl. True, it's slow, but it works.
<br><br>But then things change. DateTime project was started, and
now it is somewhat the de facto standard. It's more modern and far
more modular than the monolithic Date::Manip (every timezone and
language support and parsing/formatting modules shipped in one
single distribution). <br><br>And then there's the 5.x -> 6.x
debacle. As someone who also sprinkle Perl 5.10 requirements to his
CPAN modules, I can feel for the author. But the difference is, most
of my modules are not that widely used/known, and also many start
its life already requiring 5.10 right from its first released
version. While in Date::Manip's case, this happens to a very widely
used module. Surely backwards compatibility should be considered
more. <br><br>All in all, you are free to use or not use
Date::Manip. There are other alternatives. Pick wisely. <br>
Rating: 6/10
App::pmuninstall
Author: XAICRON <https://metacpan.org/author/XAICRON>
One would wonder why CPAN clients still don't have this crucial
feature Though you see Miyagawa listed in the Credits so maybe
cpanminus or its sister will end up having this functionality? One
can only hope. At 0.06, some things are not working flawlessly
(submitted in RT). Keep up the good work! <br><br>
App::lntree
Author: ROKR <https://metacpan.org/author/ROKR>
I guess this app is still useful, since "cp -sR" still
doesn't work as many would expect, and there are Windows users out
there (yes, newer NTFS does support symlinks; though I don't know
whether this module supports creating symlinks on NTFS). <br><br>A
minor comment would be on the name, maybe lnstree can be considered
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