[Bioperl-l] external module dependencies in bioperl (was Re: [Bioperl-l] Bio::DB::WebDBSeqI)

[chris dagdigian]

I have updated our external/ FTP area at ftp://bioperl.org/pub/external/ so 
that it contains the File::Temp module. This is a FTP directory that I 
manually maintain so that it may not be always up to date. It is present 
for convenience only...people should check for the availability of newer 
versions.

I've also updated our 'externals' web page at 
http://bioperl.org/Core/external.shtml to reflect this new 07 dependency. 
This is where I have been trying to track and explain all of our various 
dependencies.

My $.02 is that external dependencies are fine as long as we document the 
need for them well. The LWP stuff is a perfect example of when and where it 
makes sense to rely on other people's code rather than try to roll our own 
HTTP handling code.

That being said-- if File::Temp is so great we should be consistent about 
it....in release 07 all of our modules that need to create temporary files 
in a portable way should be changed so that they use File::Temp.

-Chris





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