Yes, dependencies are a bit of a problem (I tried to use as few as possible in ccheck), but I'd say that the general culture of CPAN is to keep things long-term

Yes, dependencies are a bit of a problem (I tried to use as few as possible in ccheck), but I'd say that the general culture of CPAN is to keep things long-term and prevent breakage, so my experience has been fairly good over the last 25 years. Something I can't say for node.js.