Hi- I noticed Steve found and fixed a bug in checkvalidisbn(). That's great, but it got me thinking about re-inventing the wheel. There are a number of CPAN modules that Koha could be making use of, such as in this case Business::ISBN, which seemingly would bypass the whole issue of us needing to find and fix such bugs. I've seen comments in the past, somewhere in the list archives I believe, that some Koha folks would rather write new routines in order to have fewer installation dependencies. I don't think installation dependencies are the real problem. I think installation simplicity is the real problem. If there was an easier way to ensure dependencies are met, wouldn't that be better than writing more code and introducing more bugs? Perhaps we could have a step in the install process that checks for required modules, and runs (or at least creates) some sort of CPAN download script to install any missing modules. What do you think? - Alan ---- Alan Millar --==> am12@bolis.com <==--
On Sat, 6 Jul 2002, Alan Millar wrote:
Hi- I noticed Steve found and fixed a bug in checkvalidisbn(). That's great, but it got me thinking about re-inventing the wheel.
There are a number of CPAN modules that Koha could be making use of, such as in this case Business::ISBN, which seemingly would bypass the whole issue of us needing to find and fix such bugs.
This is something that bears talking about. Using CPAN modules allows us to use stable, thoroughly debugged code, and to focus our time and efforts on other things.
I've seen comments in the past, somewhere in the list archives I believe, that some Koha folks would rather write new routines in order to have fewer installation dependencies.
I don't think installation dependencies are the real problem. I think installation simplicity is the real problem. If there was an easier way to ensure dependencies are met, wouldn't that be better than writing more code and introducing more bugs?
Perhaps we could have a step in the install process that checks for required modules, and runs (or at least creates) some sort of CPAN download script to install any missing modules.
We're already checking for (some) dependencies, and should probably just check for as many as we create. The idea of creating a CPAN script is a good one (at list for non MAC/Win32 boxes).
What do you think?
Anyone else want to weigh in? -pate
- Alan
---- Alan Millar --==> am12@bolis.com <==--
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On Sat, 6 Jul 2002, Pat Eyler wrote:
We're already checking for (some) dependencies, and should probably just check for as many as we create. The idea of creating a CPAN script is a good one (at list for non MAC/Win32 boxes).
I think I'm the one that prefers simpler installation. Even with 1.2.1, I had to help a person who had the Set::Scalar module installed, but it wasn't in perl's module path. I agree that there are some things that we should be relying on modules for (MARC support, Z39.50), but I don't think that we should be adding a module dependency for the 4 lines of code required to check the validity of an ISBN. It would also be nice to have a short tutorial on diagnosing module problems (If you see something like _this_ in your apache error logs, that means you are missing _this_. Explain what the @INC paths are that should also be down in the apache error logs, and how to use CPAN to install the missing modules). If this could be automated, that'd be great. At this point in Koha's development, installation problems are losing us a lot of potential users, in my opinion. It's getting better, of course, but we still need to pay attention to it. Steve.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Tonnesen Steve wrote: |I think I'm the one that prefers simpler installation. Even with 1.2.1, I |had to help a person who had the Set::Scalar module installed, but it |wasn't in perl's module path. How do these ideas differ? Why not have the installation install Set::Scalar, etc? Most Windows games install DirectX, if necessary, so why can't Koha install perl modules, if necessary? Tom Albrecht III -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6-2 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAj0n0KEACgkQEBkclKlERsXbQgCfS5426gyDur7bzjGt7KSFPkNQ HZgAn3jLbBRprAlT0XSQ0xAkll5cvJcQ =R1PY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 01:51:42PM -0700, Tonnesen Steve wrote:
I agree that there are some things that we should be relying on modules for (MARC support, Z39.50), but I don't think that we should be adding a module dependency for the 4 lines of code required to check the validity of an ISBN.
I don't want to be argumentative, but those four lines of code have been in Koha for 8 months (CVS start of marcimport.pl), and the bug was just now caught. How many other latent bugs are throughout Koha because we are re-inventing the wheel, that wouldn't be there by using a pre-debugged CPAN module? It's impossible to know. However, I expect that solving the fundamental CPAN dependency problem for one module will solve it for all modules. If we can properly detect and install one CPAN module to solve a dependency, we can do that with a list of modules too.
It would also be nice to have a short tutorial on diagnosing module problems (If you see something like _this_ in your apache error logs, that means you are missing _this_. Explain what the @INC paths are that should also be down in the apache error logs, and how to use CPAN to install the missing modules). If this could be automated, that'd be great.
Yes, that's a great idea.
At this point in Koha's development, installation problems are losing us a lot of potential users, in my opinion. It's getting better, of course, but we still need to pay attention to it.
Rhetorical question: Which is worse, a tough installation that provides a working system afterwards, or an easy installation that provides a buggy system afterwards? No quick simple answer, but you can guess which way I'm leaning. Just my food for thought. Thanks for the dialog. - Alan ---- Alan Millar --==> am12@bolis.com <==--
On Sun, 2002-07-07 at 18:02, Alan Millar wrote:
On Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 01:51:42PM -0700, Tonnesen Steve wrote:
I agree that there are some things that we should be relying on modules for (MARC support, Z39.50), but I don't think that we should be adding a module dependency for the 4 lines of code required to check the validity of an ISBN. I think that we need to ensure that any module that we use add's value to Koha as a whole. In this case assuming that the 4 lines of code (a) works as expected and (b) meets the requirements of Koha, there is to my way of thinking no point in using a module.
It would also be nice to have a short tutorial on diagnosing module problems (If you see something like _this_ in your apache error logs, that means you are missing _this_. Explain what the @INC paths are that should also be down in the apache error logs, and how to use CPAN to install the missing modules). If this could be automated, that'd be great.
This is a good idea, possibly something that we should all look at are the possible errors that can arise, and ensure that they get into the FAQ as a starter. I think that the single biggest feat for the team to organise would be to organise and create a Bundle::Koha module that will contain all of the modules that we need. Installation should then become significantly easier. Just adding my 2c worth Mike
participants (5)
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Alan Millar -
Mike Mylonas -
Pat Eyler -
Tom Albrecht -
Tonnesen Steve