CPAN: $677 Million of Perl

Adam K writes "It had to happen eventually. CPAN has finally gotten the sloccount treatment, and the results are interesting. At 15.4 million lines of code, CPAN is starting to approach the size of the entire Redhat 6.2 distribution mentioned in David Wheeler's original paper. Could this help explain perl's relatively low position in the SourceForge.net language numbers?"

Comments

Huh?

[Billobob]

Low position? For a language that's not suppose to be a full-blown low-level language like C/C++, perl is pretty damn well represented - over 1/3 the number of projects compared to C isn't that bad. If you have just one file, something like sourceforge usually isn't needed.

Perl isn't Linux

[gorim]

Perl is a cross-platform tool that existed long before Linux did. Why do such things get posted under Linux ? May as well post it under BSD it would be doing the same thing. This happened with the recent Bash 3.0 topic as well. Why do people associate things with Linux just because it is open source ? (Unless it is BSD open source).

Useless Measurement?

[webword]

What is more important, lines of code or lines of quality code? People are always so impressed with sheer numbers. Quality is important.

A similar issue is format and structure. You might do something almost right, but it could be better. For example, you might include dates on your web pages but is the format good for users? It can probably be better!

Numbers are only impressive when they are placed in context of their overall utility. Of course, regarding code, measuring "overall utitility" is no joke. Can you really tell that the code from Programmer A is better than Programmer B.

In any event, keep your eyes open. Don't let "15.4 million lines of code" amaze you just because the number is big. Let it amaze you because of what it means, and what those lines of code do for users.

Re:Useless Measurement?

[ajs]

LOC isn't a great measure, but when talking about CPAN there are several things to keep in mind that modify the premise of measuring LOC:

• Perl modules on CPAN include their own, customized installation and testing harness. This renders them far more valuable than a simple dumping ground of LOC.
  
• CPAN presents a searchable, globally mirrored database of this code, which again increases its value.
  
• Perl itself has an extremely powerful syntax. Many of Perl's detractors, in fact, will claim that this is far too much power to have in a syntax (vs. grammar and/or semantics and/or external libraries), so comparing 1000 LOC in Perl to 1000 LOC in, say, Java or C# or other "mid-level languages" (my phrase) can be quite favorable to Perl. Even comparing to other high-level languages can be, depending on the application (of course, each high level language has its own strengths, and for example, Python's thread handling is much simpler than Perl's, and both Ruby and Python make OO much easier).
  

That said, I think that the idea that comparing LOC in, say, a Red Hat distribution to LOC in CPAN is valuable, regardless of the fact that structure and format are also concerns. They are equally concerns in both environments, and both environments have roughly equal pressures on improving both incrementally over time (e.g. bad code gets migrated away from the core and good code gets migrated in).

ALL OF THAT aside, Perl's CPAN is most valuable not because of its size or the quality of the code, but because it is a repository where thousands of people with highly specialized needs share code with each other. Perl is unique in having created such a space that is widely used outside of core advocates of the language. I don't know why that's the case, but as long as it is, it's a very good thing.

Getting code noticed by your niche's peers and making it available for everyone to use is key to Perl's success as a language.

Re:Gilb's Law

[Minwee]

I'm not seeing any connection there.

Glib's Law only states that there exists _some_ measure with a value greater than that of not measuring. It doesn't say that every measure, no matter how bizarre, is better than nothing. Glib's Law tells us nothing about the value of lines of code.

If measurement for measurement's sake was always a good thing then I could take an eight bit CRC of the source code or the ratio of "e"s to "i"s and use those as metrics for quality.

Re:Nonsense.

[Merk]

Read the quote carefully: "Anything you need to quanitfy can be measured in some way that is superior to not measuring it at all."

He's not saying that *any* measurement is better than no measurement. He's saying that there exists a measurement that is better than no measurement.

Which tastes better, ice cream or fresh pineapple? I don't know, but rather than say "It's impossible to say! Any measurement will be flawed." You could do a survey and see what most people think tastes better. That may not be the measurement that is better than no measurement, but for certain purposes it may be.

In the end, it depends on what your reason for doing the measurement is. If you're going to be marketing a new bubble gum flavour, then this survey is better than no information at all.