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Re:What’s so great about CPAN anyway? by draegtun on Thursday February 17, 2011 @10:10AM (#2231146)
Nope. Its darwinian, the more modules in the gene pool means newer/better solutions need to fight harder to survive & win. So the outcome is often better for Perl/CPAN, for eg. Moose
Re:What’s so great about CPAN anyway? by igneous4 on Thursday February 17, 2011 @11:01PM (#2234169)
> Its darwinian

I think you're correct, but that there are trade-offs. Take Python, for example. They have "batteries included", and when modules make it into the std lib, they pretty much stop evolving. However, on the up-side, Python gains users who like having everything packaged up nice and neat so they don't need to go looking for modules quite as much.

Perl takes the popularity hit of not having too many batteries included, but benefits from the darwinian element that works to make the 3rd-party modules better. So, perlers need to spend more time asking around (or checking cpanratings), and also dealing with it when there's turnover (the module that they chose a few years ago is eclipsed by a competitor, or stops being maintained, and now they need to rewrite some of their code).

In the end, I think Perl has better modules.

Re:What’s so great about CPAN anyway? by draegtun on Friday February 18, 2011 @05:56AM (#2234998)
Yes i've touched briefly on CPAN vs stdlib approach before (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2088040). They're just different approaches and neither is better or worse than the other.

BTW... I believe all language repos will have darwinism acting upon it. I see it in Ruby & Python as well as on CPAN. Its Perl philosophy and CPAN size that just stirs the pot a bit more!

Re:What’s so great about CPAN anyway? by danssig on Thursday February 17, 2011 @10:24AM (#2231199)
That's your assumption. Higher quantity in no way implies that the quality entries will be higher than they would be in a system with less quantity.
Re:What’s so great about CPAN anyway? by draegtun on Thursday February 17, 2011 @10:40AM (#2231276)
You're the one who keeps making assumptions!

My statements about darwinism and also about Moose being better for Perl/CPAN are factually correct.

Re:What’s so great about CPAN anyway? by danssig on Thursday February 17, 2011 @11:19AM (#2231454)
>My statements about darwinism

Darwinism has nothing to do with this. At best you're trying to invent a connection that doesn't exist.

Re:What’s so great about CPAN anyway? by draegtun on Thursday February 17, 2011 @11:52AM (#2231615)
Clearly darwinism hasn't made trolls extinct yet :)

Based on your comments here and the fact you're a newly created account then I am going to have to make the assumption that trolls do indeed exist among us :(

Re:What’s so great about CPAN anyway? by danssig on Thursday February 17, 2011 @12:13PM (#2231726)
You seriously think I made this account just to troll you? Talk about defensive.
Re:What’s so great about CPAN anyway? by draegtun on Friday February 18, 2011 @05:43AM (#2234980)
You seriously think I made this account just to troll you?

Of course not, that is just an assumption of yours ;-)

Seriously though I do feel your comments have had a troll tone and my previous statement was half in jest. So I do apologise sincerely if you have taken offence to it.

So again sorry and welcome aboard HN.