hfb writes "Since a few people have asked recently about submitting scripts to the CPAN, I thought I would mention the scripts repository.
The scripts repository is managed by Kurt Starsnic. There is a mailing list as well as detailed instructions for submitting your scripts to the CPAN.
What's nice about the scripts repository is that it's mirrored around the world and is part of the CPAN just like modules are. I keep noticing script archives with flashing banner ads and such around the net and would love to see the CPAN scripts repository rival them all in ad-free-ness and useful scripts and tools."
Finally!
Alex Farber on 2001-01-27T15:15:09
Let's copy the Matt's Archive!
Re:Finally!
wickline on 2001-01-28T00:34:18
ugh... I hope that was sarcasm dripping from your fingertips.
Re:Finally!
Alex Farber on 2001-01-28T14:26:54
;-)
Re:Finally!
Silver on 2001-01-28T21:41:25
No, really... let's copy
http://cgi.resourceindex.com/, which apparently sprang from Matt's. Aside from the banners, it's a whole lot more decent than, say, the Perl Archive, which makes my eyes bleed, and I'd've been perfectly happy with it except the maintainer seems to have gone "Ooh, shiny!" and wandered off to do something else.
I Ask Perl'd about a non-eye-hurting replacement for it awhile back, but I haven't seen the submission accepted (nor rejected, although it can be now that this article's been posted). I'd be a really happy person if CPAN had a moderately complete, easy-to-find-the-new-stuff, easy-to-research-the-old-stuff listing. Reviews and ratings and whatnot are handy, too. I've been poking around at HotScripts, and that seems to be okay, although I haven't yet found a way to display a single category in rating order, which would be handy.
And of course all of the above are CGI-only. It'd be kind of nifty to have a site that had non-CGI stuff, too.
Re:Finally!
pudge on 2001-01-29T13:45:44
Heh, I guess it just got lost in the Hold section. Sorry.
:-)
Re:Finally!
hfb on 2001-01-30T02:05:05
Well, people have to submit their scripts before one can search for, comment on or rate the non-existant.
Quality is also more attractive than quantity.
CPAN isn't a flash-in-the-pan and isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
e.
Re:Finally!
Silver on 2001-01-30T17:18:03
'Saright, I figured I had missed reading some important piece of documentation that said "We won't be accepting any submissions that don't have the magic word 'potrzebie' in them, just so we know you read this." Or something.
Re:Finally!
Silver on 2001-01-30T17:22:51
Right, but it's kind of a catch-22. If there aren't scripts, people don't bother to submit scripts, because there aren't visitors, because there aren't scripts.
So basically someone should just ask cgi.resourceindex.com if CPAN can kipe their entire database. And CPAN should figure out how scripts can be submitted by other than the authors, unless I'm missing something there.
Re:Finally!
pudge on 2001-01-31T13:24:23
But I thought part of the whole purpose of putting scripts on CPAN was to have quality stuff
...
Re:Finally!
Silver on 2001-01-31T17:04:55
That'd be a Good Thing. But it ain't gonna work in an author-submitted-only model.
Re:Finally!
wickline on 2001-02-01T12:24:51
the author-submitted only model seems to work well for the rest of CPAN. What a-priori reason would you see that it should fail to work for scripts?
Admitedly, the model may bear improvement, but I personally would rather see an author-submited only model rather than have folks submitting scripts they do not own. Most of the scripts in the archives you mention do *not* have specific licenses attached, and *do* have copywrite. Just drag-and-dropping them into cpan would risk a great deal of script-author upsetedness.
A question...
I recently uploaded a script to CPAN
http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/W/WI/WICKLINE/
and thought I did so according to the instructions. However, I haven't seen it pop into the scripts archive. I tried emailing Kurt to find out what the schedule was for panning scripts out of the recent uploads list, but have no yet had a response. Does anyone know if this is a manual process, and Kurt is on vacation... or if it's a weekly or a monthly cron'ed thing, or what?
thx
-matt
Re:Finally!
Silver on 2001-02-01T15:02:16
the author-submitted only model seems to work well for the rest of CPAN. What a-priori reason would you see that it should fail to work for scripts?
Eventually, it will, other than the overall level of Perl expertise necessary to write a library is somewhat higher than to write a script, and so you're going to have people submitting some pretty pathetic stuff. But to begin with, you have to build it before they'll come.
Most of the scripts in the archives you mention do *not* have specific licenses attached, and *do* have [copyright]. Just drag-and-dropping them into cpan would risk a great deal of script-author upsetedness.
True, being that CPAN is an actual repository rather than a batch of links. There would have to be someone going through by hand and verifying everything, and contacting authors where necessary.
Heck, it'd be a useful service to the community at large: "Say, how come you have your script on the Web for download if you aren't licensing anyone to use it?"
Re:Finally!
hfb on 2001-02-02T15:48:40
Well, what he fails to note is that if the scripts section of CPAN has languished a bit in its obscurity, the rest of the 'script sites' have succeeded in quantity v. quality. 10 really good scripts are worth 1,000 awful ones. At the very least it doesn't blast you with flashing banner ads.
As far as getting your script indexed, try to be patient and keep nagging Kurt as that is his domain but he has been somewhat distracted lately with his work and other things. He'll get to you :)
e.
Re: scripts indexing (Was: Finally!)
wickline on 2001-02-04T02:10:01
> try to be patient and keep nagging Kurt
> as that is his domain but he has been
> somewhat distracted lately with his work\
> and other things
ah... so it's a manually-initiated sort of thing then? (v. a cron job run on recent cpan uploads or something)
