NAME
CPAN::Testers - QA of CPAN distributions via cross-platform testing
SYNOPSIS
With the explosive growth and increased interest in the CPAN Testers, it
was felt useful to create this namespace placeholder to house the newly
architected next-generation CPAN Testers stack, which is now in
development. This namespace also provides for the consolidation of
related work under one unified and easily identifiable umbrella.
Co-maint permissions in this namespace are freely granted to anyone
working on any area of the CPAN Testers infrastructure.
DESCRIPTION
Started in 1998 by Graham Barr and Chris Nandor, the CPAN Testers exist
to provide quality assurance of CPAN distributions via cross-platform
testing with many versions of perl. Some of our goals include the
increase of portability of CPAN distributions and to provide authors
with helpful feedback.
Nowadays, it's quite effortless to get involved--even casually--with
mature support for CPAN Testing with both CPAN and CPANPLUS. Testing
methods ranging from manual to automatic are available.
There are many distributions that comprise the CPAN Testers stack
(please forgive my poor artwork). The current architecture is as
follows:
[POE-Component-CPAN-YACSmoke]
[cpantest] |
\ [CPAN-YACSmoke]
\ (CPANPLUS)
\ /
\ [CPAN-Reporter] /
\ (CPAN) /
\ | /
[Test-Reporter]
|
[SMTP]
|
[cpan-testers@perl.org]
(Data Store)
|
[nntp://nntp.perl.org/perl.cpan.testers]
| \
[CPAN-WWW-Testers-Generator] [cpanstats]
| |
[CPAN-WWW-Testers] [http://perl.grango.org/]
|
[http://cpantesters.perl.org/]
Test::Reporter is the delivery mechanism for the test report data, as
provided by one of its upstream constituents. A transport is then
invoked to submit the test report to the cpan-testers@perl.org mailing
list. The mailing list is the current de facto data store for the test
reports. From there, web-based presentation of the reports are provided
courtesy of the CPAN-WWW-Testers and CPAN-WWW-Testers-Generator
distributions, and web-based statistics are provided courtesy of
cpanstats.
Improvements to this architecture are currently in discussion. Plans for
abstracting discrete functionality (parsing, grading, transports, etc.)
into separate distributions within this namespace are in progress.
Additionally, we are working on an HTTP transport for the submission of
test reports at the request of the perl.org folks, Adam Kennedy, and
others.
For more information on the CPAN Testers please visit the links below:
*
CPAN Testers reports
*
CPAN Testers statistics
*
The CPAN Testers Wiki
*
The cpan-testers mailing list
*
A presentation entitled "How to be a CPAN Tester" created by Barbie
and David Golden
*
A short tutorial entitled "Become a CPAN Tester with CPAN::Reporter"
created by David Golden
*
An article entitled "Becoming a CPAN Tester with CPANPLUS" created
by Audrey Tang
CAVEATS
This is the second draft of this document. Undoubtedly, there may be
various bits that need some adjustments. Feedback is most welcome.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2007 Adam J. Foxson and the CPAN Testers. All rights
reserved.
LICENSE
This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
SEE ALSO
*
CPANTS: The CPAN Testing Service. A related, yet distinct, project
aimed at providing some sort of quality measure (called "Kwalitee")
and lots of metadata for all distributions on CPAN
*
Special thanks to the members of the perl-qa mailing list for
providing valuable insights and suggestions over the years
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
AUTHORS
Adam J. Foxson , having been involved with the CPAN
Testers for over half a decade, is the principal author of
Test::Reporter.
Thank you to David Golden and Barbie for their advice and suggestions on
improving this documentation.