RFC: Looking for "CPAN Trivia" and "Bizarre Tales of the CPAN"

[cog]

Most esteemed monks, :-)

I'm preparing a new (possibly lightning) talk on CPAN trivia and the most bizarre things regarding CPAN.

An example of a bizarre tale:

• On Devel::Profile's documentation one can read: "SEE ALSO: Yellowstone National Park."

And an example of some CPAN trivia:

• There are many PAUSE ids with zero uploaded distributions. Is it just because people get an id and then they forget about it? No, it's also because some people actually apply for an id just to help out on a certain module and thus need access to RT, some people upload a module but later on find someone else to take over it but keep the id anyway, etc.

That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for, and I'll probably mix the the trivia with the bizarre tales. I have some material already, but I'm sure if I ask around others will have many more stories to tell.

So, anyone?

[jmcnamara]

In Win32API::File:

SEE ALSO

The pyramids.

And in CAD::Drawing::Manipulate::Transform:

Coordinate System

All of these methods assume a RIGHT-HANDED coordinate system. If you are using a left-handed coordinate system, you are going to have trouble, trouble, trouble. We aren't making video games here!

And the Ninja files!?

--
John.

[thewalledcity]

Wow, the ninja files are weird. Anyone know where/how they came about?

[Corion]

Trivia: Old distributions don't die, they just move on to http://backpan.cpan.org

tye's modules contain other important things to see, like Once More With Feeling -- Joss++

[belg4mit]

And ~439 packages were removed between Dec 2005 and Dec. 2006, whereas 2190 were added (16% growth).

[eyepopslikeamosquito]

Though most of the evidence has now been expunged, one funny incident I remember is the strange case of the Unix module. When originally uploaded, the author was predictably flamed on cpanratings for trampling wantonly on the global namespace. It became bizarre when the author explained that the name Unix was chosen, not because it had anything to do with Unix, but because it was "Unix inspired". It moved from bizarre to surreal when the author published a rebuttal of the cpanrating criticisms in the Unix module's POD. As you might expect, this led to yet more cpanratings flames, this time for perverted use of POD. :-) Evidence of this can still be found at cpanratings (Unix-0.02) (scroll down to the Unix-0.02 entry).

[xdg]

Minor amusement:

I believe PAUSE/CPAN incorrectly implemented the META-yml spec for "no_index", using "directory" instead of "dir" (as called for in the spec). Due to widespread adoption, the latest META.yml spec has changed to match CPAN.

[eyepopslikeamosquito]

I just remembered something I did a while back to try to make it a bit less boring for the folks when installing your CPAN module (Acme::EyeDrops in this example). I organised the test names so that they deliver a haiku as you run make test:

t/00_Coffee.........ok
t/01_mug............ok
t/02_shatters.......ok
t/03_Larry..........ok
t/04_Apocalyptic....ok
t/05_Parrot.........ok
t/06_not............ok
t/07_a..............ok
t/08_hoax...........ok
t/09_Gallop.........ok
t/10_Ponie..........ok
t/11_bold...........ok
t/12_Beer...........ok
t/13_to.............ok
t/14_gulp...........ok
t/15_Buffy..........ok
t/16_astride........ok
t/17_Orange.........ok
t/18_sky............ok
t/19_surrounds......ok

The haiku above was derived from A brief history of Perl 6 development in haiku. Not especially noteworthy perhaps, though I don't know of anyone else who has tried this. Perhaps others have livened up their CPAN module installs in other ways.

[haoess]

In last year's june/july there was some dispute about the Class::DBI module.

See schwern's journal entry, the Class::DBI::Frozen::301 module by sri, this blog entry (»Will Class::DBI fork?«), and the Acme::Class::DBI::NoThreats module (neither on CPAN nor BackPAN).

There was also some legal discussion about participation on mailing lists, like this one (from the old Class::DBI mailinglist):

*** was told he was temporarily banned from the list. He proceeded to re-subscribe anyway. In the UK, that is indeed a criminal offence. I've invited him to comment on this, but if he does not do so, I shall have little option but to proceed with reporting this matter to the Police.

Unfortunately most of these things were deleted from the web (modules, list archives, blog entries etc.)

-- Frank

[shotgunefx]

I can tell you why I have no modules under my ID.

I had more than a few I was going to upload (circa 2001-2002), then my family turned into a cancer cluster virtually overnight. $!#@$#

I just haven't gotten around to it yet , with dealing with everything afterward (some day), though at the time, I remember there were more than a couple questions I had, but couldn't easily find answers to. What those questions were, no idea now. :(

[Anonymous Monk]

For my own amusement in For::Else:


SEE ALSO
  Fur::Elise by Ludwig van Beethoven

[belg4mit]

I saw that last month, when considering this module for the advent calendar. Unfortunately it's a filter which are generally ruled out. It is a nifty idea though.

[grantm]

And then there was the ACME::Current debacle.