From: Aaron Patterson <aaron@...>
Date: 2009-04-14T01:36:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Can Ruby stay ahead ?

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 01:05:18AM +0900, Marcelo wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 18:22, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <zznmeb@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > *Quantity* ... CPAN far outnumbers Python, Ruby and other languages in
> > the number of packages. To paraphrase Garrison Keillor, "If it isn't
> > in CPAN, chances are you can build your application without it."
> 
> Quality, actually.  Quantity is just the cherry on top.
> 
> Start here: http://search.cpan.org/
> 
> What do you see?
> 
> From there, you can go here:
> 
> http://search.cpan.org/search?query=html+parser&mode=all
> 
> (I'm picking a not-so-random example, one that's good enough for
> illustration purposes)
> 
> You see HTML::TreeBuilder there and check it out:
> 
> http://search.cpan.org/~petek/HTML-Tree-3.23/lib/HTML/TreeBuilder.pm
> 
> What do you see there?
> 
> I see a decent introduction, I see examples, I see a documented API,
> written from the point of view of someone who wishes to use it yet
> doesn't know enough about it, not from the point of view of someone
> who already knows about it and wants to be reminded of a particular
> detail, I see cross-references, I see links to other relevant
> information, among which is this:
> 
> http://search.cpan.org/~petek/HTML-Tree-3.23/
> 
> What do you see there?
> 
> I see history, I see reviews, I see a discussion forum, I see
> information that's neatly organized...
> 
> I see *usability*.
> 
> And this is just scratching the surface of the website representation
> of CPAN.  CPAN is not only that website.  As the name implies, CPAN is
> a network of resources.
> 
> But David did hint at something else that I see as a problem: a
> strange type of hostility towards criticism that not even the Perl
> community displays.  Oh, and that strange notion that rubygems somehow
> works in the same problem domain as CPAN does.  If something, rubygems
> provides a small subset of the functionality that CPAN does.  The main
> difference I see is integration.

When I was growing up, my parents told me that if I didn't like my
dinner I would have to cook the next meal.

It sounds like you have a great recipe.  :-)

-- 
Aaron Patterson
http://tenderlovemaking.com/