A CPAN related modules section

[metaperl]

I read the list of new submissions to CPAN on a daily basis. I have found it impossible to get authors to add related modules to the SEE ALSO section of their docs. Sometimes they don't respond. Sometimes it is egotism. Sometimes I just don't know. But the bottom line is that there are a lot of modules related to each other that people don't know about.

The ideal solution would be to cobble up a database and render HTML from that , but i am too lazy to do it.

Also, one needs to distinguish between

plain jane lists of modules

Here is my list of modules for lazy loading. It is nothing but a list, with no attempt to feature-compare. Ok, there's a bit of feature-comparison, because I draw a line between modules which only do lazy loading and modules which offer lazy-loading as part of a larger functionality-base.

lists which make comparisons of features

Here is where simonm makes a feature comparison of various DBI wrappers. It is an example of not just blindly listing things, but attempting to make a comparison of them.

We can probably also place choosing a templating system by perrin in this category

Aristotle's A brief survey of the DBI usability layer modules on the CPAN also falls into this category. as well as tphyahoo's survey of surveys of templating systems

reviews based on use cases.

These are usually submitted to the Perl conference or YAPC::NA. They are very useful but time-consuming. for example, I have developed DBIx::Recordset::Playground which gives runnable code sampls for using DBIx::Recordset, but I cant imagine getting the work for 3 or 4 related modules done as well. I was happy in a thread I created long ago to have autarch submit some Alzabo code to compare with how other DBI wrappers would do the same thing.

Concluding, I am mainly interested in a place to develop blind lists and perhaps having the follow-ups relate personal-experience or feature-comparison.

If you notice, there is an ever-growing set of off-site links from search.cpan.org for each module - AnnoCPAN, CPANForum, CPANTesters, CPANreviews. It seems to me that CPAN-related is a gap that could be filled by a section of this website. What do you think?

[xdg]

I'm not clear what this has to do with Perlmonks. It seems like one of the things that annocpan can be quite useful for. If you think a consolidated list would be a good thing rather than a module-by-module list and don't know where to put it, I encourage you to write it up and submit it to the "Tutorials" section as one option. Alternatively, maybe something like learn perl would find it useful.

[Ovid]

Yes, this would be fantastic for annocpan. On the other hand, what metaperl is discussing goes beyond what is being done for annocpan and I think it would be an excellent addition for Perlmonks, too. Additionally, PM would be a great place for lively argument debate discussion about the modules.

[Aristotle]

This is not a new idea by any means. It was the essence of one of the first threads on the module-authors mailing list I dove into; I made some suggestions there back then. Nothing came of it.

The problem is that the problem is not technical. It’s not for lack of a centralised repository that such discussions of modules in relation to each other are rare. It’s because it’s a whole heap of work to write surveys. Mine was shallow, and it still took a day’s worth of reading docs and comparing; and then another couple of hours to write up my impressions and edit the writeup. For an in-depth review of multiple modules that does them each justice, you’ll have to expend a great deal of effort if it’s going to be meaningful.

Going by how much effort it is to compose such a survey, I think you’d be best served not to try to pool them in one location. Not everyone will know that PerlMonks has such a section. Let whoever is willing to write one up post it wherever they prefer and know of. Look for such surveys and collect a maintained list of links in some prominent place (and that does not mean in a module on CPAN as with CGI::Prototype::Docs::Resources, it most likely means somewhere in a subdomain of perl.org). If this prominent place turns out a useful enough resource, it will naturally accrete reputation over time and with the number of links it accumulates. People will hear about it and refer to it, and authors of new surveys will eventually mention theirs to whoever runs the site as well.

You can’t make that happen by making people go to a central instance first – that will never get off the ground.

[rcseege]

I like the idea (++) and have even used the idea myself in the past in the Tk::JComboBox docs, and plan to implement it within other modules I publish and/or maintain. However, I disagree that Perlmonks should be where this information is kept. It should be in the docs. Barring that, I think AnnoCPAN is the best place for others to add this information. AnnoCPAN provides a mechanism that can provide feedback to module authors, and even if authors don't add it, the annotations remain "close" to the documents through the service.

If you're looking for something to place on Perlmonks, I think maybe a longer tutorial or article (similar to the survey you mentioned) that goes into more depth might be worthwhile

Rob

[metaperl]

This is just a lil' sample of how I'm thinkin':

HTML::Widget::Factory, Rose::HTML::Objects, HTML::Element, XML::Generator, CGI, HTML::Mason, Template, Text::Template, HTML::Template.

[artist]

I had wished something like this for long time. Useability of CPAN can be greatly increased.

[ryantate]

++

I agree this would make for a nice section on PerlMonks.

Another comparison to include: Comparison of different Perl caching modules