

Perl Did That First - hachiya
http://variousandsundry.com/cs/blog/2014/09/12/perl-did-that-first/

======
mooreds
I am not sure how constructive posts like these are. We all stand on the
shoulders of giants.

That said, the longer I code, the more borrowing from the crufty old
langiage/system/community/technology I see in the "shiny new thing", even if
many folks slam the old entity.

~~~
Mithaldu
The constructiveness of this is that people trying to find a solution for an
already solved problem can easily take from them the solutions already
implemented; instead of struggling through making their own solution.
"Stealing" is highly recommended and looked upon favourably by Perl people.

And as you say, it also serves to show newer programmers that there is no need
to badmouth older languages, there is only to learn.

~~~
SEMW
> trying to find a solution for an already solved problem can easily take from
> them the solutions already implemented

The 'solution already implemented' in this case seems to be 'Email the PAUSE
admins who will deal with each case individually'. It seems kinda
condescending to imply that 'have more volunteers' is something that the ruby
community just hasn't thought of; as if projects short of manpower just need
to learn from the wisdom of the perl community in just, y'know, having more.

One of the main motivations for Benjamin to write his post seems to have been
the reply in the initial thread from the Rubygems admin saying "I want these
decisions to not be on my (or anyone's) shoulders. It's stressful and nerve-
wracking if I get it wrong"[0]. Given that, a reply saying, essentially,
'What's the problem, just get the RubyGems admin to make the decisions'
seems.... unconstructive at best.

[0] [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rubygems-
org/niS5ZO9DNgk/9gF...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rubygems-
org/niS5ZO9DNgk/9gFq2S67npoJ)

~~~
Mithaldu
He didn't post the step-for-step instructions on how to proceed, but only the
first bit of that:

[http://www.cpan.org/misc/cpan-
faq.html#How_adopt_module](http://www.cpan.org/misc/cpan-
faq.html#How_adopt_module)

In short: Make an account, email admins and cc author, then shotgun every
place the author's likely to see your intent, then wait a few weeks, and if
your efforts have been clear, and the author unresponsive, admins will
transfer rights to you.

Typically following this procedure results in the original author reacting,
and if they don't, then there's nothing wrong or nerve-wracking about a
transfer. CPAN has a big body of history pointing to this working just fine.

Besides, if i interpret this right that the number of rubygem admins is low
enough that simply handling such a simple matter would be a problem, then you
have bigger fish to fry.

\----

Edit: Then again, Benjamin admits that his post doesn't solve:

    
    
        > deal with gems whose owners are AWOL
    

Which is the _real_ problem, and the solution to which solves pretty much all
other cases too.

------
lostcolony
Condescending tone aside, what I read as being proposed for Ruby isn't the
same as what is being shown for Perl.

In Perl, a dev says "Huh, I don't think this is being maintained properly",
and then proceeds to contact the original author, and failing that, a set of
admins.

The Ruby proposal, on top of that, allows a dev who is abandoning a project to
mark it as such, and that then is individually findable or noticeable. This is
actually a rather more interesting approach, as it means those downstream know
when a library they're using is being abandoned, and can decide -immediately-
what to do about it, from switching to another library, up to and including
taking ownership of the existing one. The community can have a proactive
notification of abandonment, if you will.

~~~
swuecho
how about this?

[http://neilb.org/2013/08/07/adoptme.html](http://neilb.org/2013/08/07/adoptme.html)

[http://neilb.org/adoption/](http://neilb.org/adoption/)

------
lighthazard
While I agree with a majority of the posts, I have some reservations -
uploading to CPAN and PrePan is not as simple as a git push. Registering
through PAUSE and then properly uploading to CPAN with a zip file through
their UI or through FTP.

I think CPAN and co could use an infrastructure update.

------
bascule
Simpsons Did It:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsons_Already_Did_It](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsons_Already_Did_It)

