Why do there have to be winners?

Well, each option is a "winner" for some reason (otherwise it might not have been written).

Having options is great - having some way to qualify those options based on our current needs is even better.

If we have (just throwing numbers out there):

• 25 web frameworks
• 10 ORM layers
• 6 Charting/Graphing libraries
• 5 Email-sending modules

And I need to build a website that allows users to sign-up to receive daily sales data charts in graphic format, I have 25 * 10 * 6 * 5 options. That's 7500 possible options, and that kind of site is not exactly complicated.

I don't know about you, but I haven't tried all 7500 possible combinations to know which works best. What I think works fine could really stink. I could really be missing out on something great, and not even know it.

If we had some kind of objective means of qualifying the many modules and how well they work together, that would be great. I don't expect (or want) to see Perl end up with a J2EE/.Net FCL-style "Your Way Is Inevitable. You will be assimilated" One True Way of doing anything.

Having solved just about every problem there is with Perl, I think we should (as a community) be able to find some way to rate combinations of modules and techniques as they apply to the various problems out there.

Maybe a kind of "create-a-combination" tool that then allows you to vote on it. If someone else has already created a combination identical to yours, you just go to that combination instead. Similar combinations would be displayed near one another. It would lend context to the huge array of options we have, and allow the community to quickly ascertain the group opinion of a specific combination of modules. Things like "What worked?" "What didn't work?" "What issues arose?" and so on.

An idea anyways.

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