From: "Berger, Daniel" <Daniel.Berger@...>
Date: 2005-04-09T03:29:30+09:00
Subject: Re: RubyForge at 600 projects and counting...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Lyman [mailto:lymans@gmail.com] 

> 
> I found this page after a bit of googling:
> 
> http://www.cpan.org/indices/du-k.gz
> 
> ... so what part do we care about comparing ourselves to? I 
> know we're not a Perl clone, but it seems like we'd have won 
> a major 'battle' in PR if we can say (in some shape or form) 
> that we have a 'collection' as large as CPAN.
> 
> -Rich

I'll take quality over quantity any day. :)

Ruby's library will probably never be as large as CPAN for a few
reasons.

* Several modules just don't make sense and/or aren't needed in Ruby
(e.g. most modules that start with "Class::").
* There is often overlap in functionality that Ruby has done a pretty
good job of avoiding so far.
* Some modules that are still external in Perl are part of the stdlib in
Ruby (e.g. libwww).
* The Ruby community doesn't do "Acme::" modules (and I hope it stays
that way).

I'd say only about 1/3 of the modules on CPAN are actually "good"
(though some are exceptional, e.g. DBI).  The rest are outdated,
redundant, very highly specialized, unused or just plain suck.  No, I
don't have anything to back that up.  Just a general impression after
using Perl as my primary language for several years.

Regards,

Dan