Re^9: Switch

[marto]

If using http://search.cpan.org it does actually display the current rating (as stars) and number of reviews on the page of search results, e.g. at time of writing it displays WWW::Mechanize has 4.5/5 stars and 16 reviews.

http://metacpan.org also displays this on the search results page, even more helpful is that the rating/number of reviews also show up on the left hand side of the modules page, along with a bunch of other useful information, e.g. WWW::Mechanize.

[BrowserUk]

Hm. Switch currently shows "1 review" and a rating of ***.

But clicking through it displays 2 essentially negative reviews; 1 rating of *** by the guy that wrote:

I would use all the time if it did not completely confuse the Perl interpreter's idea of line numbering. Introduction of this switch makes debugging a nightmare, throwing off all line nubmer reporting in the module in which it is used.

And one "hidden unhelpful review" that I cannot view. Presumably I could if I enabled JS but ...

I guess if "makes debugging a nightmare" is ***; then there is just no point to having a rating mechanism.

[marto]

Any sort of code created to provide such a service is dependant on good quality data. As a long term user I was a little surprised you didn't know about cpan ratings, perhaps a push for participation would raise the quality of data available.

Update: And yes, it looks as though there's some JS depend stuff there at the moment.

[hippo]

I was a little surprised you didn't know about cpan ratings, perhaps a push for participation would raise the quality of data available.

A few months ago the whole issue of CPAN Ratings was brought up on the MetaCPAN github tracker. That's worth a read as there are good points made for how the Ratings system could be improved in itself and/or better represented on MetaCPAN (or removed from it entirely as some propose).

The current system is certainly not without flaws but hopefully those in control of it might consider some of the posited improvements. It could become a really useful part of the CPAN ecosystem which would benefit authors and users alike.

[BrowserUk]

As a long term user I was a little surprised you didn't know about cpan ratings,

I probably wouldn't have used them if I had.

I tend to look inside modules and make my own judgements; but I'm not the audience that is bitten by modules like Switch sorting to the top of the search.