From: David Garamond <davegaramond@...>
Date: 2003-01-25T10:34:25+09:00
Subject: wait for more perl programmers! (Re: Can we attack the 'not enough libraries' thing straight on?)

dblack@candle.superlink.net wrote:
> We've all heard this: "Ruby is great, but it doesn't have the
> equivalent of CPAN."
> 
> So, all you almost-satisfied Ruby programmers, what's missing? :-)

yes, a CPAN equivalent is currently missing. however, worry not because 
ruby will attract enough perl programmers that sooner or later they will 
recreate a CPAN for ruby :-)

i'm widly guessing that of 10 perl programmers that migrate to/try out 
other languages:

- 1 will settle to python;
- 7-8 will settle to ruby;
- 1-2 will settle to other language;

ruby tries very hard to be a better perl, while python is just too 
different from perl that perl programmers will miss all these features:

- builtin regexes;
- command line options (-i, -n, -p);
- special variables ($_, $0..$9);
- tainting;
- all that nice quoting operators (qw//, qr//, qq//);
- obfuscatability (sp?);
- etc.

-- 
dave