Bug #34484 for WordNet-QueryData: CPAN Testers: please make sure WordNet is installed and WNHOME is set properly

Thu Mar 27 14:47:10 2008 jrennie [...] cpan.org - Ticket created

Subject:

CPAN Testers: please make sure WordNet is installed and WNHOME is set properly

Most CPAN tests are bogus b/c the tester does not have WordNet installed and/or has not set WNHOME correctly. I have yet to see a failed CPAN test provide any useful feedback...

Thu Mar 27 15:37:38 2008 ANDK [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

I am a cpan tester and I have already disabled testing for WordNet-QueryData, WordNet-Similarity, WordNet-SenseRelate-AllWords. Sorry, this does not work out. No modules on CPAN I know of demands that the user set two environment variables, one for build time (WNHOME) and one for run time (WNSEARCHDIR). Or both for runtime? Sorry, I forget. I had to read the source code to find out and in the end I gave up. How about thinking of ways to configure wordnet during the PL phase, installing config data along with the module so that it will be able to run without an environment variable? At runtime you can still decide to die when things are not fitting together. Think of modules downstream that depend on yours. If everybody demands two environment variables to get a module running, this will get ridiculous quickly. It would also be a great idea to actually verify if wordnet is installed at the PL phase. Maybe Devel::CheckLib can help you with that or you can certainly write a little perl glue code. If WN is not there, just exit the Makefile.PL without writing a Makefile and without returning an error. Tell the user it did not work out and why. Then no make and no test phase will happen and you will never receive a test report from those who have wordnet not installed. It's a pity it happens that software producers and users annoy each other. Sorry to have played my part in the game. Imagine, we also only realize after testing what kind of module we just tested:-(

Thu Mar 27 15:37:54 2008 The RT System itself - Status changed from 'new' to 'open'

Wed Apr 02 10:39:51 2008 TPEDERSE [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

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sidd [...] cs.utah.edu, kolha002 [...] d.umn.edu, tpederse [...] d.umn.edu

Just a followup or two to what is a very interesting and relevant discussion. WordNet-Similarity and WordNet-SenseRelate-* are actually projects that are independent of QueryData at least in terms of who is doing the developing and looking at these bug reports, so I can of ran into this discussion by accident, but I'm glad I did. Let me pose a question from the point of view of WordNet-Similarity and then WordNet-SenseRelate-* as there is very much a chain reaction here, WordNet-Similarity relies on WordNet-QueryData, and then WordNet-SenseRelate relies on WordNet-Similarity. We *think* that we are now (as of our newest release for WordNet-Similarity) handling the case where a tester does not have QueryData installed, and we now fail more gracefully. We think. :) But we don't seem to be getting many test cases run against us these days, and so we aren't sure. Did we get "blacklisted" in general, and are we out of the testing cycle? How can we get back into the cycle, if for no other reason than to see that we are failing gracefully if QueryData isn't there? I am not sure if the SenseRelate modules fail gracefully if WordNet-Similarity is not there, they might not, but we'd like to work on it, and the testing is quite helpful. Is there a way to find out if a module is "out of the testing" cycle - we have a few modules that get tested a lot (Text-Similarity or Algorithm::Munkres, for example) but others that rarely if ever do. I don't mind if we get a few failure reports piling up, we'll try and fix them. It doesn't seem like a failing module is too bad a deal for a tester, so I'm not sure exactly why testing would be disabled... Cordially, Ted On Thu Mar 27 15:37:38 2008, ANDK wrote: Show quoted text

> I am a cpan tester and I have already disabled testing for > WordNet-QueryData, WordNet-Similarity, WordNet-SenseRelate-AllWords. > > Sorry, this does not work out. > > No modules on CPAN I know of demands that the user set two environment > variables, one for build time (WNHOME) and one for run time > (WNSEARCHDIR). Or both for runtime? Sorry, I forget. I had to read the > source code to find out and in the end I gave up. > > How about thinking of ways to configure wordnet during the PL phase, > installing config data along with the module so that it will be able to > run without an environment variable? At runtime you can still decide to > die when things are not fitting together. Think of modules downstream > that depend on yours. If everybody demands two environment variables to > get a module running, this will get ridiculous quickly. > > It would also be a great idea to actually verify if wordnet is installed > at the PL phase. Maybe Devel::CheckLib can help you with that or you can > certainly write a little perl glue code. If WN is not there, just exit > the Makefile.PL without writing a Makefile and without returning an error. > > Tell the user it did not work out and why. Then no make and no test > phase will happen and you will never receive a test report from those > who have wordnet not installed. > > It's a pity it happens that software producers and users annoy each > other. Sorry to have played my part in the game. > > Imagine, we also only realize after testing what kind of module we just > tested:-(

Wed Apr 02 10:50:54 2008 TPEDERSE [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

RT-Send-CC:

sidd [...] cs.utah.edu, kolha002 [...] d.umn.edu, tpederse [...] d.umn.edu

BTW, I should mention that we did get a test of WordNet-Similarity that did seem to have QueryData installed, and it seems to have picked up a bug, which is really helpful as we haven't seen that before. http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.cpan.testers/2008/03/msg1219949.html Anyway, just wanted to mention that after saying we weren't getting many tests - this one is a nice one and very useful we think - we are actively pursuing it... On Wed Apr 02 10:39:51 2008, TPEDERSE wrote: Show quoted text

> Just a followup or two to what is a very interesting and relevant > discussion. WordNet-Similarity and WordNet-SenseRelate-* are actually > projects that are independent of QueryData at least in terms of who is > doing the developing and looking at these bug reports, so I can of ran > into this discussion by accident, but I'm glad I did. > > Let me pose a question from the point of view of WordNet-Similarity and > then WordNet-SenseRelate-* as there is very much a chain reaction here, > WordNet-Similarity relies on WordNet-QueryData, and then > WordNet-SenseRelate relies on WordNet-Similarity. > > We *think* that we are now (as of our newest release for > WordNet-Similarity) handling the case where a tester does not have > QueryData installed, and we now fail more gracefully. We think. :) But > we don't seem to be getting many test cases run against us these days, > and so we aren't sure. > > Did we get "blacklisted" in general, and are we out of the testing > cycle? How can we get back into the cycle, if for no other reason than > to see that we are failing gracefully if QueryData isn't there? I am not > sure if the SenseRelate modules fail gracefully if WordNet-Similarity is > not there, they might not, but we'd like to work on it, and the testing > is quite helpful. > > Is there a way to find out if a module is "out of the testing" cycle - > we have a few modules that get tested a lot (Text-Similarity or > Algorithm::Munkres, for example) but others that rarely if ever do. I > don't mind if we get a few failure reports piling up, we'll try and fix > them. It doesn't seem like a failing module is too bad a deal for a > tester, so I'm not sure exactly why testing would be disabled... > > Cordially, > Ted > > > On Thu Mar 27 15:37:38 2008, ANDK wrote:

> > I am a cpan tester and I have already disabled testing for > > WordNet-QueryData, WordNet-Similarity, WordNet-SenseRelate-AllWords. > > > > Sorry, this does not work out. > > > > No modules on CPAN I know of demands that the user set two environment > > variables, one for build time (WNHOME) and one for run time > > (WNSEARCHDIR). Or both for runtime? Sorry, I forget. I had to read the > > source code to find out and in the end I gave up. > > > > How about thinking of ways to configure wordnet during the PL phase, > > installing config data along with the module so that it will be able to > > run without an environment variable? At runtime you can still decide to > > die when things are not fitting together. Think of modules downstream > > that depend on yours. If everybody demands two environment variables to > > get a module running, this will get ridiculous quickly. > > > > It would also be a great idea to actually verify if wordnet is installed > > at the PL phase. Maybe Devel::CheckLib can help you with that or you can > > certainly write a little perl glue code. If WN is not there, just exit > > the Makefile.PL without writing a Makefile and without returning an

error. Show quoted text

> > > > Tell the user it did not work out and why. Then no make and no test > > phase will happen and you will never receive a test report from those > > who have wordnet not installed. > > > > It's a pity it happens that software producers and users annoy each > > other. Sorry to have played my part in the game. > > > > Imagine, we also only realize after testing what kind of module we just > > tested:-(

> >