Re: shipping.asc - criterion with multiple values

[mikeh@minivend.com]

Quoting Phil Welch (PhilmoreW@worldnet.att.net):
> In the main, Mike does give credit to "many" contributors to the MiniVend
> project, so clearly there are givers, and probably enough to implement what
> you suggest.  So what's lacking?  Sanctioning by Mike?  Web space?
> Folks to review contributions to insure they do what they say they do (not
> in my estimation a small thing), and to determine in which release(s) the
> contribution will correctly function.  What about the contribution which
> requires numerous changes in numerous modules, which has only been tested
> for a single release?
> 
> I gather that there are more folks than myself that don't know Perl and who
> would therefore have a potentially difficult time blending changes into
> whatever release we are currently using.  But the real fun begins when Mike
> releases a new version, so we have to try to blend our changes into a new
> release with enough changes to make it challenging even for a Perl
> programmer.
> 

Actually, this shouldn't be a problem with most extensions. If you use
the provided interface to add modules things shouldn't change from
version to version.

I STRONGLY discourage hacking directly on the MiniVend code because of
this. You can do almost any feature extension with UserTags and modules.
You can even add your own catalog directives with "AddDirective". Heck,
if you rely on a certain behavior for a tag you can even override it
with your own version!

For instance, I did a "Vend::User::BoxPack" module way back at 3.00beta.
(It optimally packs boxes for shipping based upon package size in the
database, and calculates UPS shipping costs for each box separately.) The
same module continues chugging along today, having survived 12 or so
updates without a single change.

And if you replaced the latest UserDB module with the add-on one first
generated at 3.07, it would continue to chug along with the old calling
methods and small feature set.

All of this is due to the beauty of Perl and how easy it makes it
to add/subtract software in a modular fashion.  The key is to select
interfaces which don't change; I suppose that is easier for me, but I
generally don't change the calling specifics from version to version.

Bottom line is, UserTags and any modules they use simply drop in from
upgrade to upgrade.

To address the shipping question, it is something I cannot take on
myself. Shipping is a very complex beast and it is very difficult to
make things general enough to work for everyone. I have done my darnedest
there to make it configurable via database and configuration file, and
any data collation would be appreciated but cannot be supported by me
other than providing links from minivend.com.

-- 
Mike Heins                          http://www.minivend.com/  ___ 
                                    Internet Robotics        |_ _|____
                                    131 Willow Lane, Floor 2  | ||  _ \
It's a little-known fact            Oxford, OH  45056         | || |_) |
that the Y1K problem caused         <mikeh@minivend.com>     |___|  _ <
the Dark Ages. -- unknown           513.523.7621 FAX 7501        |_| \_\