Re: Help with submitting my first package

Peter Beckman wrote: >> Hopefully we can make some substantial improvements very soon. Of >> course, if you have any specific changes you'd like to see, we welcome >> patches to the documentation (peardoc/ in cvs.php.net) or infrastructure >> (pearweb/ in cvs.php.net). The website, for instance, has a newly >> created roadmap at >> http://pear.php.net/bugs/roadmap.php?package=pearweb >> that shows the direction we're heading on that end, at least for the >> near future. > > Have there been any results from your efforts? I know it's a lot to take > on. I just want something like CPAN for PHP, and right now, PEAR isn't > it, and doesn't seem to be moving that way either. Hi Peter, Well, for one thing, the governing structure of PEAR has just undergone a radical shift, as you can see in the first news item at http://pear.php.net. We'll be having elections shortly to fill the spots in the PEAR Group/president, and they will start the move towards defining collectives. As for making it easier to release a package, now, once your package is accepted, all that is required is to log in with your account, browse to your package homepage (http://pear.php.net/Package_Name for package "Package_Name"), click on the "0.1.0" link on the right, which will open up a box for creating your roadmap for the first release. Once you create it, you'll see a link that says "Generate package.xml for this release." Click on that, and you'll have a fully functional, valid package.xml which you can cut/paste into a new file. This greatly simplifies the learning curve. We are also working to implement user notes for the manual in the same way php.net has user notes, which will allow us to catch major problems in the documentation, a first requirement for making any big changes. As for being CPAN, you're right, PEAR is not CPAN. It doesn't mean it can't be a useful place to find quality code. If you're truly interested in having a say in the process, stick around, familiarize yourself with the way things work now, and perhaps propose a patch or two. Of course many ideas require more than just a simple patch, but you'd be surprised how many are possible to implement with a technical solution. I implemented secret ballot elections, roadmap planning, package.xml generation, and more just with changes to the pearweb codebase, for instance. Greg