licensecheck: improvements

[Dmitry Smirnov]

On Fri, 19 Oct 2012 09:59:10 Benjamin Drung wrote:
> 
> My usual approach is the other way around: Improve the patches
> iteratively until I am happy and then apply them.
> [...]
> I agree that reduce duplication is a good idea.
> 

Here is another patch (attached) and latest licensecheck.pl from Jessie with 
attached patch applied.

This time it is much nicer.

I moved version() to VERSION section of embedded POD, blended help() with POD 
and introduced --print-defaults once again as I believe it doesn't belong to 
help().

help() is re-implemented using pod2usage from Pod::Usage -- note that 
'autouse' load it dynamically only when we need to print something from 
embedded documentation.

Also I alphabetised list of options.

At the moment --help prints longer list than what it used to do but I don't 
see how this can be implemented without duplication. We could create another 
POD section "HELP" but it will merely contain OPTIONS squashed into more 
compact form. Probably it's not worth it and I hope you might agree that now 
the output is more traditional and maintainable. I remember you mentioned that 
you liked more compact --help output so I'm wondering how would you prefer to 
re-implement it using embedded POD.

> 
> Other software has as many license statements, too: in header, in man
> page, in --version.
> [..]
> Can you prove that it is common sense that --version does not show a
> license statement? I tested cp and ls and both state a license, too.
> 

No worries, although IMHO it is unnecessary to print license on --version I 
don't mind doing it as long as we don't duplicate the code for that reason.

Please have a look how it is implemented in the attached files, I hope you'll 
like it much better. --version still prints license and copyright statements 
but it take 'em from embedded POD sections. Much more elegant IMO.


> 
> I am not the author of licensecheck and Perl is not my favorite
> programming language. So I may be more conservative applying patches.
> That's why I may let you iterate over a patch until I am confident in
> applying it.
> 

No worries, Perl is my favourite language. :)
I'm sure we just need a bit more time to understand each other better.

> 
> I prefer the current test suite over the test in the licensecheck file
> itself.
> 

I had a look at "shunit2" and now I convinced that it's not good enough.
It's not right to use shell test suite for Perl. Test::More is more flexible, 
powerful and common for Perl. If license detection will mature we might move 
it to standalone Perl module in which case native testing will be preferable.

Lately I implemented embedded tests with 

if($OPT{'tests'}){
    eval q{
        use SelfLoader;
        tests();
    };
    exit;
}

which even use SelfLoader only when needed so if you concerned for performance 
it won't be affected *at all*.

I have many reasons to stick to embedded tests for now. For example because I 
introduce tests first, some of them will be failing by definition until viable 
fix will be implemented. I'm going to introduce new test with the new  
reported bugs so some tests will be failing until we agree on viable solution 
for the bug fix. This way tests will be also a road map for ongoing work.

I don't want to interfere with shunit2 for those tests.

Also it is much easier and quicker to invoke "./licensecheck.pl --tests" 
rather than require source package to be able to run tests.

I would like to hear a better argument for "shunit2" rather than that you 
prefer it without explaining why.

I will insist on using Test::More. If I fail to convince you I will have to 
focus my attention on implementing license detection and testing in standalone 
module which would mean that I won't be working on licensecheck until new 
module will mature enough to substitute most of licensecheck's code.


> My comments on your patches are not meant to block you. It's to
> improve/change the patches or further discuss the change with the other
> maintainer and then apply your patch or later revisions of your patches.

Thank you. I'm sure our work will be productive.
Also many thanks to you for applying some of my later patches. :)

Cheers,
Dmitry.
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