I asked "How does a programming language stagnate?" a couple of weeks ago.
Peter Scott responded with wisdom, in particular:
Modules like SUPER and NEXT are pragmata designed to make Perl behave
the way
we (for large values of "we") think it should have behaved to begin with.
Attribute::Handlers is the same; who's going to try and do much with
attributes without it?
...
So you've got to be clued into which "hip" modules to load just to get
Perl
behaving the way many people think it should. The standard documentation
doesn't have a roadmap leading people in this direction; they pretty much
have to dig around and keep up with the latest Perl news and books. I've got
no problem with requiring people to be clueful to join in the game, but
learning what amount to arbitrary incantations doesn't accomplish that.
<http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2006/06/how_does_a_programming_languag.html>
Why is there not a Bundle::PerlPlus (and yes, I've lathered up my yak with
that name) that downloads and installs the modules that should have been in
the box?
Obviously, there should be a simple package to install them on operating
systems for which the CPAN shell is not the easiest approach.
Isn't QA also about taking some of the pain out of the default experience?
-- c
