It seems that you don't like Perl 5 for OO programming in the large, but you like Ruby for some unspecified reason, and you seem to vaguely favor Java as well. You also decry the lack of proper OO training in the schools. And CPAN seems darn near useless as well. Having a bad week? :)

I can't discuss the problems you see with the Perl 5 object model, because I don't know what they are. So I'll address the useless nature of CPAN.

The main problem you seem to have with CPAN is that the modules that would have been useful to you in your most recent enterprise project were in their infancy or not available. That is unfortunate, but I think it proves the opposite point you intended to make. You wanted to use CPAN, to not reinvent. If Class::DBI or one of its derivatives was in its infancy, why not use and help develop it, rather than starting your own OORDBMS module? In that CPAN has hundreds of mature modules and thousands of promising starts, CPAN is valuable, and getting more so every week. Communities for other dynamic languages recognize that CPAN is one of the strengths of the Perl and seek to emulate it. Some of them may have problems with Perl's object model, but easy reusablilty of class modules is not one of them.

I agree that for large projects, CPAN modules tend to make up a smaller portion of the code. But I think this misses the point. CPAN modules are not meant to do everything you might need in an enterprise application. But if it is a common task, or involves some sort of agreed upon standard, there is probably a CPAN modules for it these days. CPAN modules make easy tasks easy, which makes time for coding the hard stuff possible.

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