B
Ben Bullock
Whenever I try to submit a bug via rt.cpan.org, I have to go through
about five screens in order to log in. First, I get the login screen,
which tells me I'm an anonymous guest. Then I press login, and wait about
five seconds or more to get a screen which tells me "You have been logged
out of rt.cpan.org. You're welcome to log back in again." If I leave this
screen open, I'll be sent back automatically to the previous screen. If I
keep going, and try to log in with my "bitcard account", I have to click
through an invalid certificate notice, click, wait, click, wait, click,
wait, until finally I arrive at a page where it tells me I'm logged in.
Then, having finally logged in to the system, I have no way to get back
to the page where I was going to report a bug, except by going back in
the browser and then reloading the page.
This contorted login process alone probably puts off about half or more
of the people who try to report a bug.
My question is, why is rt.cpan.org so unuseable? Perl should be able to
do much better. CPAN should tell the people behind rt.cpan.org to make it
useable, or ditch the whole RT system in favour of something which
actually works, like Bugzilla (also written in Perl). The fact that this
cranky, slow software is used as a vital component of CPAN doesn't
inspire confidence.
Secondly, while I'm about it, what's wrong with search.cpan.org? I have
no idea what software is behind the search engine, but sometimes the
search pages come up totally blank or they miss things which I know are
there.
Instead of wasting money on Perl 6, which surely will never be finished:
http://news.perlfoundation.org/2008/05/tpf_receives_large_donation_in.html
it would be better if the Perl foundation spent its money employing a
full-time administrator of CPAN to sort out these bugs.
about five screens in order to log in. First, I get the login screen,
which tells me I'm an anonymous guest. Then I press login, and wait about
five seconds or more to get a screen which tells me "You have been logged
out of rt.cpan.org. You're welcome to log back in again." If I leave this
screen open, I'll be sent back automatically to the previous screen. If I
keep going, and try to log in with my "bitcard account", I have to click
through an invalid certificate notice, click, wait, click, wait, click,
wait, until finally I arrive at a page where it tells me I'm logged in.
Then, having finally logged in to the system, I have no way to get back
to the page where I was going to report a bug, except by going back in
the browser and then reloading the page.
This contorted login process alone probably puts off about half or more
of the people who try to report a bug.
My question is, why is rt.cpan.org so unuseable? Perl should be able to
do much better. CPAN should tell the people behind rt.cpan.org to make it
useable, or ditch the whole RT system in favour of something which
actually works, like Bugzilla (also written in Perl). The fact that this
cranky, slow software is used as a vital component of CPAN doesn't
inspire confidence.
Secondly, while I'm about it, what's wrong with search.cpan.org? I have
no idea what software is behind the search engine, but sometimes the
search pages come up totally blank or they miss things which I know are
there.
Instead of wasting money on Perl 6, which surely will never be finished:
http://news.perlfoundation.org/2008/05/tpf_receives_large_donation_in.html
it would be better if the Perl foundation spent its money employing a
full-time administrator of CPAN to sort out these bugs.