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As a Perl and Modern/PBP fan, I have to suggest that CPAN has become a poorer resource over time: >In the olden days, you could expect to find a Perl module fo
by dmckeon 12y ago
As a Perl and Modern/PBP fan, I have to suggest that CPAN
has become a poorer resource over time:
>In the olden days, you could expect to find a Perl module for most anything you wanted to do
but also:
Having 57 modules all called Sort will not make life easy for anyone (though having 23 called Sort::Quick is only marginally better
and it seems that every time I look for a useful module on
CPAN I find myself in a twisty little maze of packages, all different.
TIMTOWTDI, yes, but which one (or several) of the available modules will have a usable combination of convenient utility and mutual compatibility? Over time, CPAN has started to feel
like the house of someone who rescues animals, but cannot let
go of any of them.
- davewood 12y agoThere are a few things to consider when trying to pick a good/the best module for a problem. - ask in irc.perl.org. it is very likely to get pointers from very experienced people. - use metacpan.org and pay attention to the votes/likes it got. and read the reviews. - each and every CPAN module is automatically tested. look at the stats to weed out problematic modules. - check out the release frequency and when the last release occurred. - read the Changes file - take a look at the tests for the module, is it well tested? are there alot of tests? If you are past a certain point in your life as a Perl programmer this comes very natural and does not take alot of time.
- liotier 12y agoI agree, but naive new Perl users might benefit from some prominent showcasing of well-known good modules or maybe comparison charts between modules in the same functional niche... Maybe that is a subject better left to Perl bloggers rather than to the neutral CPAN, but first contact with Perl is sometimes an embarrassment of riches. Anyway, I love the CPAN - whatever I imagine myself wanting to do, five people have done it already !
- phaylon 12y agoWell, MetaCPAN has a leaderboard of modules, but it could be a bit more prominent: https://metacpan.org/favorite/leaderboard https://metacpan.org/favorite/leaderboard