New PPM-Repositories module

[Jan Dubois]

PPM4 is using the PPM-Repositories module from CPAN for things like `ppm
repo suggest`, `ppm repo add REPONAME` and the corresponding things in
the PPM GUI.

The module hasn't been updated in a long while, and the maintainer seems
to be unreachable, so I've been given co-maintainership on CPAN.

I've uploaded a new version of the module that also add a new API
instead of just exporting the internal data structure directly:

    http://search.cpan.org/~jdb/PPM-Repositories-0.12/

Please send me any feedback you may have, especially if you are using
this module for some other purpose as well.

I'm also interested in suggestions for the "description" fields for
each repository; I found it pretty hard to come up with anything
that doesn't just repeat the name.

Cheers,
-Jan


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[Tony Cook-2]

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 09:05:34AM -0700, Jan Dubois wrote:

> PPM4 is using the PPM-Repositories module from CPAN for things like `ppm
> repo suggest`, `ppm repo add REPONAME` and the corresponding things in
> the PPM GUI.
>
> The module hasn't been updated in a long while, and the maintainer seems
> to be unreachable, so I've been given co-maintainership on CPAN.
>
> I've uploaded a new version of the module that also add a new API
> instead of just exporting the internal data structure directly:
>
>     http://search.cpan.org/~jdb/PPM-Repositories-0.12/
>
> Please send me any feedback you may have, especially if you are using
> this module for some other purpose as well.
>
> I'm also interested in suggestions for the "description" fields for
> each repository; I found it pretty hard to come up with anything
> that doesn't just repeat the name.

    devhelp => {
        location => 'http://ppd.develop-help.com/ppd',
        Type     => 'Webpage',
        Active   => 1,
        Notes    => 'Imager and HTML::Embperl',
        # this repository contains a mix of 5.6 and 5.8 packages, but
        # each individual module is for only one of the 2 versions. :(
        PerlV    => [ 5.6, 5.8 ],
        PerlO    => ['MSWin32'],
    },

I guess I should clean it up.

Not to mention do a new Imager build.

Tony
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[Jan Dubois]

On Wed, 16 Apr 2008, Tony Cook wrote:

>
>     devhelp => {
>         location => 'http://ppd.develop-help.com/ppd',
>         Type     => 'Webpage',
>         Active   => 1,
>         Notes    => 'Imager and HTML::Embperl',
> # this repository contains a mix of 5.6 and 5.8 packages, but
> # each individual module is for only one of the 2 versions. :(
>         PerlV    => [ 5.6, 5.8 ],
>         PerlO    => ['MSWin32'],
>     },
>
> I guess I should clean it up.

It is not really necessary; PPM should handle this correctly by itself
by looking inside the *.ppd files (at least PPM4 does this correctly,
haven't used PPM2/PPM3 in a while and have forgotten about their
various bugs).

In general it is good practice to also have a package.lst and package.xml
file that summarizes all the *.ppd files.  That way PPM only has to download
and check a single file instead of doing HTTP requests for all *.ppd files
to see if they have been modified.  I'm not even sure if PPM will track the
modification time for individual PPDs, so it may periodically re-download
all of them, regardless of their modification times.
 
> Not to mention do a new Imager build.

Did you verify that Imager and HTML-Embperl aren't available on e.g.
the Bribes or UWinnipeg repository?  Generally I think it is preferable
to keep the total number of repositories small.

Please let me know if you think your repository should be included in
the %REPO list used by the new function based API!  I haven't included
it because your website states that the repository is experimental,
and the file (except for Imager and HTML-Embperl) are all very old.

Cheers,
-Jan

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[Tony Cook-2]

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 05:47:41PM -0700, Jan Dubois wrote:
> In general it is good practice to also have a package.lst and package.xml
> file that summarizes all the *.ppd files.  That way PPM only has to download
> and check a single file instead of doing HTTP requests for all *.ppd files
> to see if they have been modified.  I'm not even sure if PPM will track the
> modification time for individual PPDs, so it may periodically re-download
> all of them, regardless of their modification times.

With only 2 PPDs, this isn't really an issue.

> > Not to mention do a new Imager build.
>
> Did you verify that Imager and HTML-Embperl aren't available on e.g.
> the Bribes or UWinnipeg repository?  Generally I think it is preferable
> to keep the total number of repositories small.

Truth is, I don't remember why HTML-Embperl is there.

I build Imager because the more general repositories don't build it
with the various libraries that Imager uses (libgif, libpng, libtiff,
freetype).  Also, the ActiveState repository is typically broken wrt
Imager.

> Please let me know if you think your repository should be included in
> the %REPO list used by the new function based API!  I haven't included
> it because your website states that the repository is experimental,
> and the file (except for Imager and HTML-Embperl) are all very old.

Please include it.

Tony
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