

Ask HN: Is CPAN all that good? - syberslidder

I keep looking into the language wars and I believe perl is a crappy language for many reasons and anytime anyone says  that all the perl fanboys reply is "CPAN", is it really THAT impressive?
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stevekemp
Yes.

CPAN contains modules for "everything", which is an enormous time-saver. CPAN
also hooks in with automated test-suites, and build-reports for different
environments so while the quality of various modules may be variable it is
usually obvious very quickly if you're looking at a "supported" module or not.
(A poor author will ignore the facilities available to them.)

I enjoy perl, and tend to believe most languages are "crappy". But it is the
users who make that a real thing - good code is good code, bad code is bad
code, and while a language obviously influences users they tend to be "OK" by
default.

