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Postings from May 2000
Re: Moderation [was: Re: overloading = [a solution]]
From:
simon
Date:
May 6, 2000 22:19
Subject:
Re: Moderation [was: Re: overloading = [a solution]]
Message ID:
slrn8h9v6c.91t.simon@justanother.perlhacker.org
Gurusamy Sarathy (lists.p5p):
>Here are the nominees so far (in no particular order):
> Simon Cozens
Uhm. Gosh. Yes. OK. I wouldn't say I had been perl5-porting long enough
to take this on, but *someone* obviously thinks I could do some good, so
I'd be honoured to do so.
Anyway, never mind all that. That was just the ideal excuse to post
something I've been working on for a bit. I'd appreciate comments,
corrections, suggestions and all that.
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Welcome to perl5-porters!
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you're here to watch the latest directions in Perl's development, or
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understand some of what goes on here.
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2) Questions about perl5-porters itself
2.1) What is perl5-porters for?
perl5-porters is, briefly, for all topics related to the development of
the Perl language and the perl interpreter. It's for reporting and
fixing bugs, working towards the next version of perl, and improving the
quality of the Perl language.
2.2) What is perl5-porters not for?
* Questions about programming Perl.
* Questions covered in the Perl FAQ.
* Spam.
2.3) Are there any rules?
No. However, the list is moderated, primarily in order to prevent
empassioned debate degenerating into flame war. The moderation system is
explained below.
Larry's advice from perlstyle apply just as well here as it does to Perl
programming:
* Be consistent.
* Be nice.
2.4) What is the moderation system?
Sarathy explains:
* There will be a panel of referees.
* The panel monitors both threads and personalities.
* Messages from subscribers normally go through immediately.
* Messages from non-subscribers are normally subject to moderation,
except perhaps messages sent via perlbug. (This is meant to catch
spam and usage questions.)
* Referees normally work behind-the-scenes. They will privately
remind people to avoid flogging dead equines, provocative
language, off-topic conversations etc.
* A simple majority among the referees can choose to moderate/unmoderate
threads/personalities. (The moderation state is sticky--once enabled,
it stays that way, until it is disabled.)
* Moderated messages are only posted after approval by the referees.
If not approved, they are dropped with a polite notification to
sender on the reason(s).
And note we say "referees", not "moderators". This is a deliberate comment
on their role - Sarathy again:
Referees aren't there to impede or even regulate the play--they're
there to ensure smooth conduct of it. Benching a player would be
the last resort.
The way I see it, a referee is just a voice of reason with some
recognized authority, so that they may put their foot down if it
comes down to it. (That shouldn't happen until things get ugly,
which I hope they seldom do.)
For a list of the current referees, see question XXX
2.5) But I want to see the flames and the spam!
You're sick. But OK. Subscribe to perl5-porters-rejected@[FIXME]
This is a read-only mailing list where the rejected messages end up.
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3) Development questions
3.1) How do I report a bug?
First, are you sure it's a bug in Perl itself, not just a bug in your
code? Take the problem out of the context of your current program and
write a short test program to reproduce it - as short as you possibly
can. It's far easily to clearly detect a Perl bug if it's demonstrated
in 5 lines of code, rather than buried somewhere in the middle of a
500-line program.
Next, do we already know about it? Check with the bug ticketing system
at http://bugs.perl.org/
It's always worth getting someone else to look it over and confirm that
this really is a Perl bug, not just a thinko. If there's nobody around
to do that, consider asking on the comp.lang.perl.misc or
comp.lang.perl.moderated newsgroups.
Now, if you've really got a bug, type "perlbug" at your prompt, and
follow the instructions. It really helps us if you provide: your
demonstration code, what you got, what you think you should have got,
and the relevant part of the Perl documentation that makes you think
that.
3.2) I want to get involved! What can I do?
Follow the list for a few weeks or months to get an idea of what goes
on, and see if anything pops up that you're interested in. Occasionally
someone will request a fix, and that's your chance!
If there doesn't appear to be anything you want to or are able to do,
have a look in your Perl source kit: you'll find the files Todo and
Todo-5.6 - some of the items there are being worked on, so check
back-issues of p5p. Furthermore, you don't need to be an expert
programmer: *anyone* can help with proof-reading, correcting and
expanding the documentation, for instance. There's certainly a place
for anyone who truly wants to get involved, and over time, you'll find
it.
You should also read perlhack.pod, Porting/pumpkin.pod and
Porting/patching.pod - these will tell you how to create and submit
patches, as well as some more philosophical issues involved in patching
Perl. To summarise:
* diff -ruN perl-current perl-patched > patch and append that
verbatim, preferably not as an attachment, to your post.
* Drastic changes to the syntax and/or operation of Perl are
going to be viewed with a lot of suspicion. Start small.
* Patches speak louder than words. Having ideas is good, but
taking the time to implement them will improve their credibility.
* At least one person will think your patch sucks. It's better to
let the code stand on its own merits than get into arguments.
3.3) I've created a patch, but I'd like someone to check it over
before I post it to the list. What should I do?
The first thing you should do is relax! We don't bite, and we appreciate
people who want to help. Just go for it. However, if you're still
worried about whether you should send the patch, email the relevant
pumpking for the area you're patching, or one of the referees.
3.4) Is Perl in CVS?
Perl isn't available by anonymous CVS. Perl is, however, kept under
development control - it's using a Perforce server which is currently
hosted for us at ActiveState. Some pumpkings have write access to this
server. There is no public read access to this server - see 3.6 below.
3.5) What is the APC?
When a change is made on the Perforce server, a patch is generated and
placed in the Archive of Perl Changes. This is located at
ftp://ftp.linux.activestate.com/pub/staff/gsar/APC/
The directory diffs/ contains patches against the latest release.
3.6) What is perl-current?
There's also a directory called "perl-current" in the APC, which
contains the very latest Perforce snapshot of Perl. This is the closest
it gets to an anonymous CVS, and this snapshot is what, ideally, you
should patch against.
Since downloading the whole thing from FTP is wasteful, you can either
keep yourself up-to-date using the diffs as mentioned above, or you can
use rsync - the following command will update the directory "bleadperl"
on your computer to match perl-current:
rsync -auvz rsync://ftp.linux.activestate.com/perl-current/ bleadperl/
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4) Who's Who
4.1) What's a pumpking?
You didn't read Porting/pumpkin.pod, did you? :) A pumpking is the
person who holds the patch pumpkin, the responsibility for co-ordinating
patches on a specific area. You can find a (slightly coded) list of the
current pumpkings at the end of AUTHORS in your Perl source kit - this
maps people to areas, and MAINTAIN maps both people and areas to files in
the kit.
4.2) What's *the* pumpking?
*The* pumpking is the person who holds the patch pumpkin for Perl
itself, what other projects call the "release engineer". Currently,
that's Gurusamy Sarathy.
4.2) Who are the referees?
Fixme.
4.3) Who maintains this FAQ? Can I send suggestions/corrections?
Please do! You can reach the FAQ maintainer at <p5p-faq@perlhacker.org>.
The maintainer is currently Simon Cozens.
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--
Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading.
Debug only code.
-- Dave Storer
-
Re: Moderation [was: Re: overloading = [a solution]]
by simon