Valuable CPAN Testers

cwest on 2005-01-06T19:56:02

Last month Barbie stopped testing CPAN modules.

http://use.perl.org/user/barbie/journal/22432

This is a problem for me for several reasons. The most important reason is that he tests on MSWin32. I don't have any Windows computers laying around and if I did I wouldn't go on developing with them. My opinions aside, some people do such things.

Barbie works for MessageLabs, a tiny Email Security company with clients like McDonalds, Moen, and Thiess. They use MSWin32 for some things, and they use Perl. I'd like to believe that they're at least a little interested in the Perl Email Project.

I can't be certain that any of Barbie's testing was related to his work environment, I don't really care. His testing was very important to me and uncovered a number of bugs in important Email modules when working (or failing, as the case may be) under Windows. His FAIL reports were important.

So in his closing statements Barbie notes that being a cpan-tester is a thankless job. I never thanked him. Though I know we discussed failure reports for my software a couple times. That doesn't count. So Barbie, thanks for your work. I know that - practically speaking - I really will miss it.

Posted from caseywest.com, comment here.