use Perl

• Re: Tags (Score:2)

  by domm (4030)

  Gabor has put some effort into adding tags to CPAN with CPAN::Forum [cpanforum.com]. There even is a tag cloud [cpanforum.com].
• metabase (Score:2)

  by domm (4030)

  Sounds like we really need the CPAN Metabase [perl.org]... (scroll down to 'Project 2 -- CPAN Metabase for CPAN Testers 2.0')
• tags! (Score:1)

  by jmason (3282)

  I strongly agree, tags are the way to do this -- they're great for this kind of "needle in a haystack" searching.

  Another thing: mid-length module descriptions, of a roughly freshmeat-style length (512 chars). this is short enough to fit in one paragraph, and therefore fit loads of modules on a single page, but allows enough text to specify function and purpose with a few synonyms for searchability.
• We need evolution, not revolution (Score:2)

  by petdance (2468)

  For the past three months, we've had a mailing list, rethinking-cpan, for discussing this very problem. Here's the blog post that started it: http://perlbuzz.com/2008/04/rethinking-the-interface-to-cpan.html [perlbuzz.com]

  I've started a group, rethinking-cpan [google.com], for discussing the ideas I've posted here. -- Andy

  Every few months, someone comes up with a modest proposal to improve CPAN and its public face. Usually it'll be about "how to make CPAN easier to search". It may be about adding reviews to search.cpan.org, or

  --
  

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  xoa
• Metadata is an old theme (Score:2)

  by hfb (74)

  Years ago, I convened that CPAN meeting in London for the sole purpose of getting some sort of Metadata standard together as this is an old problem that could possibly be partially solved with metadata. Unfortunately, not much happened in that vein as it would require a lot of work and cooperation from more than a few people and consensus has never been a strong point of perl people. Andreas, Ken, Leon and Jos were the most interested and may possibly be still....if you're interested in picking up that idea
• easy one-stop shopping (Score:1)

  by Eric Wilhelm (6389)

  With webapps, the site maintainer has to be bothered to add every new thing. Further, the overhead to setting-up a local copy of a webapp often involves install and setup of a particular database, web server, etc. Webapps (by nature) don't need to be easily deployed onto a wide variety of systems, so setup usually kills any ambition of trying to add "one simple idea" to a thing -- even if you have the source code.

  What if you could download and install a CPAN search+install application on your computer in