Mailing-List: contact dev-help@perl.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 12:40:24 -0500 (CDT)
From: Randy Kobes <randy@theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca>
To: David Wheeler <david@wheeler.net>
cc: Geoffrey Young <geoff@modperlcookbook.org>, <test-dev@httpd.apache.org>,
   <dev@perl.apache.org>
Subject: Re: resolving Apache::Test vs. Apache::test collision
In-Reply-To: <56E52A9C-7FE5-11D7-8CC1-0003931A964A@wheeler.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0305061204570.2227-100000@theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Tue, 6 May 2003, David Wheeler wrote:

> On Tuesday, May 6, 2003, at 08:49  AM, Randy Kobes wrote:
> 
> > An upshot of this is that, when installing Apache-Test,
> > a system file Apache/Test.pm or Apache/test.pm should
> > probably be unlinked before copying to the blib/ directory.
> 
> Yes, and hope that they don't reinstall mod_perl 1 with its Apache/test 
> again.
> 
> I'm beginning to think that, for all the up-front hassle of it,
> just renaming it to Apache::Tester or Test::Apache will avoid
> more headaches in the long run.

That's a good point, although as Stas pointed out, it may cause
some confusion with those already using Apache::Test.

If one views (philosophically) Apache::Test as a major upgrade to
Apache::test (with a different API), might it be reasonable to
consider replacing those packages that use Apache::test with
Apache::Test? For example, in the next mod_perl 1 release,
require Apache-Test for the tests, and do away with Apache::test?  
This would require rewriting the tests, which might be worth it
anyway, as a major illustration that Apache-Test works equally
well with mod_perl 1 (I'd volunteer to look at that, as I'm on
one of the offending systems).

I guess one advantage to this, recalling Stas' suggestion of
putting the functionality of Apache::test into Apache::Test, is
that two quite distinct test frameworks don't have to,
officially, be supported. And it also, eventually, addresses the
problem of installing mod_perl 1 after an Apache-Test
installation and overwriting Apache/Test.pm with Apache/test.pm.
The downside, of course, is that mod_perl 1 is very stable, and
so major changes like this aren't desireable. Another
disadvantage is that there's 3rd party mod_perl 1 modules that
use Apache::test (for example, Apache-Filter), and these would be
affected. 

Perhaps a compromise to the above is to just do this on Win32/Mac
OSX (or even not changing the test framework at all in mod_perl
1, and just not install Apache/test.pm), and then just print out
a warning that this is being done, and why. This wouldn't affect
as many users, and in the Win32 world, and perhaps also on the
Mac, I think users are used to major upgrades that aren't
necessarily backwards compatible.

-- 
best regards,
randy


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@perl.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@perl.apache.org