Automatic harness for CPAN Modules

Just thinking: a great way to sell TWiki to CPAN people would be to provide a harness for CPAN modules.

This could

• Download a named CPAN module
• Have TWiki be the configurator for the module
• Use the PerlSamplePlugin to use the Perl module in a safe way.

More if I can clarify the vision

-- MartinCleaver - 07 May 2003

Interesting - however, I think the fact that TWiki doesn't make much use of CPAN (mainly for ease of installation reasons) would probably be somewhat off-putting to CPAN people. Most CPAN modules require the 'make install' part to run as root, so it's not easy to have a web application such as TWiki do this - would need a great emphasis on security that's not really what TWiki is strongest at.

I do like CPAN a lot and have been on a project where it was used extensively, but I don't think it's so appropriate for 'mass market' CGI applications such as TWiki, where ModPerl can't be relied on (for performance).

-- RichardDonkin - 07 May 2003