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CPAN was (at best) the second because it was based on CTAN, the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTAN https://en.wikipedia.org/w

CPAN was (at best) the second because it was based on CTAN, the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTAN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTAN Also mod_php was more akin to FastCGI with the limited access it gave PHP to the Apache request cycle. While mod_perl allowed you to effectively override any stage of the Apache request cycle with custom code. With mod_perl2 this was pushed to the point where I believe the Apache Foundation was running Apache for their SMTP servers running custom Perl protocol handlers.

alexhutcheson 6y ago
I didn’t count CTAN because Tex isn’t a general-purpose programming language, and so wasn’t competing for the same use-cases. FastCGI wasn’t available for Apache until ~2004, so having something “akin to FastCGI” was actually a significant advantage until then. mod_perl was strictly more powerful, but that power made it inappropriate for use in a shared hosting environment, which limited Perl’s addressable market.