From: Bill Dueber <wdueber@...>
Date: 2003-02-13T01:35:40+09:00
Subject: Re: Can we attack the 'not enough libraries' thing straight on?

A thousand years ago (Jan 23rd 2003), dblack wrote:

>So: is there a process by which we can identify *exactly* what all the
>missing modules are?  And then write them? :-)

Caveat: I'm just coming to Ruby from Perl. I get paid to write and maintain 
Perl. I'm pretty aware, I think, of the limitations of Perl (don't get me 
started on it!) and the CPAN and don't know enough about Ruby yet to take 
myself seriously in this camp.

Having said all that ... :-)

First off, a good place to look for modules that are candidates for 
duplication are:

   The perl core
     http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/CPAN/perl/

   The "most downloaded" list for CPAN search
     http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/CPAN/stats.html

The latter is a very imperfect snapshot, but not a bad place to get a good 
idea of what people are bothering to update: the database stuff, LWP, 
libnet, the mail tools, compression, date-related stuff, etc.

I was also, I have to admit, disappointed to follow this thread in the 
archive and see all the "CPAN? We don't want no steeeeekin' CPAN!" 
responses. Yes, there's a lot of crap on the CPAN, and you'll occasionally 
get into trouble with dependencies and such.

But for all the elegance and ease of Ruby, lots of problems are inherently 
*hard* (or just incredibly painful) to code well (meaning fast, complete, 
taking exceptions into account, etc) no matter what your programming 
environment. If someone creates a good module, the question should be, "How 
can we lower the bar for the effort it takes to get this great module out 
to the public?" In that respect, I think the CPAN is wildly successful.

The ability for me to fire up a CPANPLUS shell and search for "Crypt" or 
"Statistics" and come up with instant solutions to my problems most of the 
time is incredibly appealing. A well-defined, well-regulated, and empty 
archive doesn't do anyone any good.

After years of Perl, you can imagine how excited I am to start using Ruby 
for my daily work. But CPAN is a hard drug to give up. I can't even imagine 
how much stuff I've done over the past few years wouldn't have been worth 
the effort if I hadn't been able to cobble together pieces from the CPAN 
that got me 90% of the way there.


Bill Dueber * Ph.D. candidate, Instructional Systems Technology, IU *
Graduate Assistant, IU Bloomington Educational Studies and Testing