Re^2: Modules, Frameworks, and Reinventing the Wheel

Trouble is, how else do you become proficient with a language if you don't write code with it?

Strawman. No one's telling you not to write code. People are telling you "Don't write bad code to solve a difficult problem badly." You can ignore that, of course, but please don't distribute code like that without running it by some smart and experienced other people first.

The thing is, you can become a good and experienced programmer by ignoring what the good and experienced programmers tell you. It'll just take a lot longer and be a lot more difficult than if you listened to them when they said "I did it the hard way; this way is easlier."

How do new students know if a module is any good?

Ask people you trust and who have experience for their recommendations.

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Re^3: Modules, Frameworks, and Reinventing the Wheel
by Velaki (Chaplain) on Aug 13, 2004 at 11:26 UTC

I agree. Asking people you trust is good; however, I've noticed that the people the new ones trust -- where I work -- go by the concensus of the local perl experts chatroom, which is never of one accord, since many of the "experts" in there are just as green as the ones asking the questions. Hence, all the module overuse, and no one appears to have learned the whys and wherefores of perl enough to give reasoned opinions. They simply chant, "Module::Module::Module."

As I've said before, I'm all for modules. They're good for what ails ya, but it's like going to the doctor and upon being asked, "Where does it hurt?" replying, "You're the doctor. You tell me."

I would rather see the new programmers understand perl, and know why they're using the modules, and how the modules help them, rather than bolting together a disjoint set of modules, and gluing them together with really nasty code.

Maybe I should start some basic perl lectures to help the new programmers learn how to use modules more effectively, by showing them how their implementation and glue code may be written.

"Perl. There is no substitute."

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