rt.cpan.org, search.cpan.org: why so unuseable?

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.
 
B

Bjoern Hoehrmann

* Ben Bullock wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc:
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.

Actually you can just send a mail to bug-<dist>@rt.cpan.org, the only
difference is that your report might not be associated with the account
you use on rt.cpan.org.
 
D

Dr.Ruud

Ben Bullock schreef:
Whenever I try to submit a bug via rt.cpan.org, I have to go through
about five screens in order to log in.

I go to https://rt.cpan.org and am automatically loggged in, without any
hassle at all.

On the top of the initial page it says:
Please report any issues with rt.cpan.org to
(e-mail address removed).

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.

I use it every day and have never had that experience, so the problem
must be at your end.

Instead of wasting money on Perl 6, which surely will never be
finished:

Perl 6 is great and is getting greater every day.
 
B

brian d foy

Ben Bullock said:
Whenever I try to submit a bug via rt.cpan.org, I have to go through
about five screens in order to log in.

Yeah, that's a pain in the ass.
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,

Well, it has been brought up several times before. "CPAN" isn't really
anything. There isn't a person who can "tell" anyone to fix RT, or
anything else, and there is no one who can tell any particular module
author that they have to use RT. Authors are free to use any system
they like. They might use Sourceforge, or Google Code, or their own
thing.

RT is there because Best Practical set it up and automatically creates
user accounts for all module authors. It's only official in the sense
that most people use it, not because it was selected or any other
service was not selected.
it would be better if the Perl foundation spent its money employing a
full-time administrator of CPAN to sort out these bugs.

RT is a product of Best Practical, which doesn't need any money to fix
the problems. Their's is a problem of priority and motivation.

Money is almost never the problem in things like this. You need to find
someone who cares to fix it.
 
D

Dr.Ruud

brian d foy schreef:
Dr.Ruud:

How do you get automatically logged in? I've never been able to figure
out that part.

When I am logged in at bitcard, I only need to click the Login button
(the one with thee double lines border).

Logging in at bitcard is facilitated by the default password vault of
Firefox.
 
B

Ben Bullock

Well, it has been brought up several times before. "CPAN" isn't really
anything. There isn't a person who can "tell" anyone to fix RT, or
anything else, and there is no one who can tell any particular module
author that they have to use RT. Authors are free to use any system
they like. They might use Sourceforge, or Google Code, or their own
thing.

But the "Report a bug" link on the web page of every CPAN module goes to
rt.cpan.org, which makes it the default way to report a bug, in the same
way that the "Rate this distribution" link goes to cpanratings.perl.org.
Perhaps there is a better way to rate distributions or report bugs but
most people are going to end up at these sites. Similarly with the
"Annotate this POD" link.
 
J

Jesse Vincent

A lot of people (including me), have the same complaints: Don't
discount what Ben said just because you don't have a problem.

http://brad.livejournal.com/2342234.html

http://use.perl.org/~Alias/journal/34801

https://twitter.com/gisle/statuses/782101160


Brian, Ben,

As far as I know, Adam is fairly happy with the work we've done over
the past year to improve functionality and performance. I'm not going
to speak for brad and gisle as I haven't heard anything from them in
rather a long time.

For what it's worth, I've personally had trouble with Bitcard
authentication. That's why we added support for OpenID logins. And
CPAN authors can also log in with their PAUSE credentials, which is a
simple username/password combo.


Of course, having walked through the archives of the queue we use for
tracking bug reports and issues in rt.cpan.org, I don't see a single
email from Brian describing his problems or asking for help. And the
only thing I see from Ben is a message asking us to respond to people
complaining on usenet this afternoon.

So, guys, if you have problems, why don't you write to us asking for
help rather than starting by publicly complaining? [And yes, that's a
rhetorical question. We'd be happy to help out if you write to the
address on the front-page of rt.cpan.org. But usenet is not a valid
support channel for us]


-Jesse
 
B

Ben Bullock

Ben Bullock schreef:


I go to https://rt.cpan.org and am automatically loggged in, without any
hassle at all.

That's very lucky for you.
On the top of the initial page it says:
Please report any issues with rt.cpan.org to
(e-mail address removed).

I'll send them an email link to this Usenet conversation on Google Groups.
I use it every day and have never had that experience, so the problem
must be at your end.

Well, if it is a problem at my end, it's a problem which spans several
computers, many operating systems, and many other people.
 
B

Ben Bullock

As far as I know, Adam is fairly happy with the work we've done over
the past year to improve functionality and performance. I'm not going
to speak for brad and gisle as I haven't heard anything from them in
rather a long time.

Gisle Aas's complaint dates from 3rd April 2008, two and a half months
ago.
So, guys, if you have problems, why don't you write to us asking for
help rather than starting by publicly complaining?

The reason I posted the original "public complaint" rather than sending
an email was to get some feedback on whether it was "just me" or whether
other people were experiencing the same problems.
 
B

brian d foy

Jesse Vincent said:
As far as I know, Adam is fairly happy with the work we've done over
the past year to improve functionality and performance.

That wasn't my impression when we were talking about it over lunch this
weekend when we were figuring out how to avoid using RT but not knowing
of anything better to use.
Of course, having walked through the archives of the queue we use for
tracking bug reports and issues in rt.cpan.org, I don't see a single
email from Brian describing his problems or asking for help.

I'm not much of a complainer, and people had already complained about
what I would have complained about and it's still what it is. It's
slow. I don't know why, or how, and what you need to do to fix that. I
don't think it's high on your list of things to do. I'm not looking for
support because I just deal with it.

I don't start the discussions about RT sucking. I just acknowledge the
situation and defend against the "works for me so must be okay for
everyone" retort.
 
B

Ben Bullock

Today, when I tried to press "resolve" on rt.cpan.org, I experienced an
eight minute delay (from 9.34 to 9.42 pm) from rt.cpan.org before finally
stopping the web browser. As Jesse Vincent requested, I've reported it to
the address on the CPAN page.
 

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