CPAN is 20 • Hacker News Board

Re: CPAN is 20

#31

Post by pyre » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #25

lugus35 wrote: post #23

For libraries: in Perl : there is really one way to do it, use CPAN. in Python : there's more than one way to do it : pth, eggs, setuptools, pip, wheel, distutils, easy_install,... http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2012/6/22/hate-hate-hate-everywhere/

> in Python : there's more than one way to do it : pth, eggs, setuptools, pip, wheel, distutils, easy_install,... > pip, wheel Package formats: egg, wheel Packaging/Install libraries: setuptools (incl. easy_install), pip, distutils Install method: pth It looks less daunting when you don't make every item look like a replacement for itself. I notice that under Perl you don't list ".tar.gz" ".tgz" ".tar.bz2" and ".tar.…

Maybe I can clarify for the down voters because they haven't really responded with anything of substance (e.g. a comment):

* In the Python world, pip replaces/supplants/simplifies away easy_install much in the same way that cpanm/cpanminus made things much easier than the regular cpan command, or even cpanplus (at least in my experience). I feel like listing of "CPAN" as a whole, while breaking out "pip" and "easy_install" is disingenuous in light of this.

* CPAN is just the distribution network (plus all of the meta stuff like search.cpan.org, metacpan, cpantesters, etc). Python also has a single distribution network: The Python Package Index (aka PyPI / "the cheeseshop").

* Talking about distutils/setuptools/distribute is the same as talking about many of the tools that are used to manage Perl packages/modules (I can't recall their names off the top of my head, but there are at least 2 or 3 of them, and they all generate their own Makefiles/etc for doing things). It's possible that these have been simplified away in the last few years (since I've been in Perl-land), but the legacy is still there (much like the legacy of Python's various distribution/packaging setup libraries).

I will admit, that as a whole, I like CPAN better than PyPI, if only for the fact that it's easy to fetch the author/package/etc lists as a gzip-ed text file whereas most tools interacting with PyPI are basically screen-scraping the website (rather than having a simple/easy api).

Re: CPAN is 20

#32

Post by Mithaldu » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 5:45 PM UTC

Hosohoso wrote: post #30

Mithaldu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly were you looking for? Which libraries did you find that were alpha or abandoned? It's highly likely that your experience was simply due to the problem domain you were looking at. If i were to look at something i work with, 3d graphics, my results would look much the same as what you said. That doesn't mean all of CPAN's like that though.

Web development.

At that time CGI::Application was way out of alpha and actively maintained.

Re: CPAN is 20

#33

Post by Hosohoso » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 7:20 PM UTC

Mithaldu wrote: post #32

Hosohoso wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web development.

At that time CGI::Application was way out of alpha and actively maintained.

I prefer using libaries instead of developing everything on my own, so usually I use 10-20 libraries for a project beyond a web framework, e.g. credit card management, HTTP library,.... YMMV and if a web framework is all you need, hurray to you.

Re: CPAN is 20

#34

Post by smonff » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 10:04 PM UTC

Hosohoso wrote: post #33

Mithaldu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that time CGI::Application was way out of alpha and actively maintained.

I prefer using libaries instead of developing everything on my own, so usually I use 10-20 libraries for a project beyond a web framework, e.g. credit card management, HTTP library,.... YMMV and if a web framework is all you need, hurray to you.

This is precisely one of the things that CPAN allows.

Re: CPAN is 20

#35

Post by Mithaldu » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 11:06 PM UTC

Hosohoso wrote: post #33

Mithaldu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that time CGI::Application was way out of alpha and actively maintained.

I prefer using libaries instead of developing everything on my own, so usually I use 10-20 libraries for a project beyond a web framework, e.g. credit card management, HTTP library,.... YMMV and if a web framework is all you need, hurray to you.

I asked for "What exactly were you looking for? Which libraries did you find that were alpha or abandoned?"

You only said "Web development."

Now you're addressing completely different problem domains, so if you don't like my answer, than that is because your initial answer to my question wasn't very clear. Were my questions unclear?

Re: CPAN is 20

#36

Post by Hosohoso » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 4:47 AM UTC

Mithaldu wrote: post #35

Hosohoso wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer using libaries instead of developing everything on my own, so usually I use 10-20 libraries for a project beyond a web framework, e.g. credit card management, HTTP library,.... YMMV and if a web framework is all you need, hurray to you.

I asked for "What exactly were you looking for? Which libraries did you find that were alpha or abandoned?" You only said "Web development." Now you're addressing completely different problem domains, so if you don't like my answer, than that is because your initial answer to my question wasn't very clear. Were my questions unclear?

Not sure why you agressivly attack me.

But sorry. This was more than a decade ago, I've done dozens and dozens of projects since then with Java, C, Ruby, Python, Clojure, Scala, Javascript, Coffescript and Typescript and more, so I can't remember 'exactly' what libaries I was using more than 10 years ago in some Perl projects.

"Now you're addressing completely different"

I beg to differ, in my book credit card processing during e-commerce checkou and accessing backend services with HTTP are in the problem domain of 'web development', but it might be different for your 'web applications'.

Re: CPAN is 20

#37

Post by Hosohoso » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 4:51 AM UTC

Mithaldu wrote: post #35

Hosohoso wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer using libaries instead of developing everything on my own, so usually I use 10-20 libraries for a project beyond a web framework, e.g. credit card management, HTTP library,.... YMMV and if a web framework is all you need, hurray to you.

I asked for "What exactly were you looking for? Which libraries did you find that were alpha or abandoned?" You only said "Web development." Now you're addressing completely different problem domains, so if you don't like my answer, than that is because your initial answer to my question wasn't very clear. Were my questions unclear?

"Were my questions unclear?"

Wow, I would never want to work with someone as bossy as you, sir.

Re: CPAN is 20

#38

Post by Mithaldu » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 7:35 AM UTC

Hosohoso wrote: post #37

Mithaldu wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked for "What exactly were you looking for? Which libraries did you find that were alpha or abandoned?" You only said "Web development." Now you're addressing completely different problem domains, so if you don't like my answer, than that is because your initial answer to my question wasn't very clear. Were my questions unclear?

"Were my questions unclear?" Wow, I would never want to work with someone as bossy as you, sir.

What's bossy about having the humility to accept that i might've expressed myself badly and sincerely asking if that's the case?

Re: CPAN is 20

#39

Post by Mithaldu » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 7:45 AM UTC

Hosohoso wrote: post #36

Mithaldu wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked for "What exactly were you looking for? Which libraries did you find that were alpha or abandoned?" You only said "Web development." Now you're addressing completely different problem domains, so if you don't like my answer, than that is because your initial answer to my question wasn't very clear. Were my questions unclear?

Not sure why you agressivly attack me. But sorry. This was more than a decade ago, I've done dozens and dozens of projects since then with Java, C, Ruby, Python, Clojure, Scala, Javascript, Coffescript and Typescript and more, so I can't remember 'exactly' what libaries I was using more than 10 years ago in some Perl projects. "Now you're addressing completely different" I beg to differ, in my book credit card proces…

I'm not attacking, i'm trying to figure out your case, because i occasionally hear people voicing a sentiment as in your original post, but never with actual detail. I'm just curious and wish to know more about this. :)

And sure, i didn't really expect you to remember what you did find. But while your response of "web development" does include credit card and http stuff, it only does so roughly. Many many web apps don't use either.

That said, at that time both LWP and Business::CreditCard were in what looks like sensible states: https://metacpan.org/release/GAAS/libwww-perl-5.803 https://metacpan.org/release/IVAN/Business-CreditCard-0.28

Did the search interface at the time not surface them for you, or were they incompatible with what you were trying to do?