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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?"
Wow, using sloccount on the full POPFile source shows that developing it would have cost around $500K in a regular software company. That seems about right given the length of time we've been working on it and the number of people involved. Cool tool.
:-)
Now if only I could push the donations up above $5,000
John.
If you take out the punctuation, though, it's down to twelve lines of code.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
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.
If you have to ask, you'll never know.
Bahhh, I know people richer than that!
Now compute the economic gain of using Perl vs. any other language:
Perl vs. Nothing : $677M
Perl vs. C : $1.25B
Perl vs. C# : $2.77B
Perl vs. Hand Optimized Assembly on Honeywell DPS-3E running GCOS operating system: Priceless
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
Here, I'll repost the link from the article you never read:
sloccount
Pfft 15.4 Million lines?
/usr/bin/perl ; ;
;
I could write CPAN in a one liner!
#!
use warnings
use strict
print "CPAN:
This
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).
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.
How to Download YouTube Videos
It's relatively low because that list is in alphabetical order!
>"C#"
You misspelled "INTERCAL".
/. response efficiency warning!
To conserve server resources in the future please update your response "Did you even attempt to click the underlined word 'sloccount'? If not, do it now and read the first line of the first paragraph." with the more efficient "RTFA" or "RTFA you stupid noob" if you are not into the whole brevity thing.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Although their "Book TV" show is usually as dense as Perl, and often profiles books that are write-only.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
So perl is behind only 4 others. Given that much Perl project work probably ends up in CPAN instead of sourceforge, this is actually pretty high. Did the poster mean he'd expect higher without CPAN?
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
I don't know any perl coders who make $135 a year, let alone $135,000!
Just so you know:
Amazon.com hires Perl programmers at a pretty good rate. Perl continues to be one of the top languages on the net. You statement is pretty rediculous. Check jobs.perl.org if you think people can't make money writing perl. You statement is quite ignorant.
Also, from the linked article:
And here's another: CPAN includes perl itself - which is probably a *lot* of lines of C code."that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
In any company employing that many perl programmers, there is at least 1 manager per 2 programmers. Therefor:
$135,000 per 2 programmers = $270,000 per year
$200,000 per year for manager
$35,000 x 2 per year for 2 programmers
+_______
$270,000
Now, it's also quite obvious from this math, that the manager must bring in far more value than a programmer. Which leads me to this conclusion, a software company that fires all its programmers and hires more managers could only become a stronger company.
Thank you, thank you. No, I do not have my MBA, but I did glean this all from managers at previous employers. Anyone know of job openings for a computer flunky in the Richmond, VA area?
Patently, bad measurements are worse than no measurements.
"Measurement drives performance." If you are measuring the wrong thing or using misleading measurements, you will do the wrong thing.
Anyone who thinks they can devise a meaningful measurement the quality of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony versus Brahm's First... or which tastes better, vanilla ice cream or fresh pineapple... or who is a better ballplayer, Willie Mays or Sammy Sosa... needs to have their head measured, preferably with a standardized test.
In order to tell whether measurement in some way is superior to not measuring it at all, you need a way to measure the quality of the measurement. But to do that, you need...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
While it's not nearly as big as CPAN, I often find Python code I need in the Vaults of Parnassus
PERL is nice in that it has a lot of prepackaged modules that provide a lot of functionality. But when you distribute code that uses these modules, the end user must install them. This is a big pain in the rear for the average user, which is why I believe that PERL is a bad choice for programs intented for the end user.
SourceForge is a great tool with meaningful projects there, but you kind of have to take the info you get from looking at overall numbers there with a grain of salt.
It may cost the employer $135K, but that's not the programmer's take-home pay. One rule of thumb I've seen is to multiply salary by ~2 to get the employer's total costs including equipment, office costs, taxes, etc. That would imply a salary of around $67K.
On average, salary is only half of what a company pays for an employee. If you count benefits, office space, training, administration and all of the other costs involved that $135k works out to more like a $67,000 salary.
A junior programmer working in Manhattan makes about $60,000 a year according to a recent salary survey, going up to $90,000 for a senior guru. Based on those numbers I don't see anything wrong with the $135k/year figure.
Coders may not _make_ $135,000, but they do _cost_ that much to employ.
b) Maybe the sloc counter didn't recognize Perl comments, so it overcounted lines. Wait, Perl programs never have comments.
c) Does this make it "a Perl of great price"?
Have you read my blog lately?
I think one of the reasons why many of the things people do in Perl don't end up becoming SourceForge projects is because they're specific to a particular environment -- my company does pretty much everything {that others might do on Windows desktops} using in-house-written Perl scripts accessed through a web browser; but they really aren't general-purpose enough to warrant releasing to the world at large. For instance, we need to store the Ordnance Survey grid references of our customers -- but not everyone will need that functionality. Perl itself provides a kind of "generality-of-purpose abstraction layer"; there's not much sense in writing a program that can handle fifty squillion different data formats if you're only ever going to use one, especially given that processor power and disk space are so cheap nowadays. I also use Perl for jobs that could be done using bash or awk or sed, but Perl is just so handy; and if I need to add one more fearure, I know I can. I'll also use perl -e 'print "something\n"' in an Xterm as a calculator {one day I'll even define a key map that puts the sequence on a function key}.
Alternatively, Perl -- thanks to all those wonderful library bindings -- might well be used for an initial "feasibility study", say to develop and test the most important function(s) that will end up forming the core of a project; and, once the proof-of-concept is there, the whole thing is then rewritten "from the ground up" in something like C or C++ {which has bindings for the dead same libraries anyway, but feels more "proper" because it's compiled rather than interpreted}.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I don't know any perl coders who make $135 a year, let alone $135,000!
I used to work at scotia bank for my high school co-op program and I was making $1k/month writing perl scripts to make graphs (using gnuplot) from webserver statistics. Was a sweet job for a 17 year old =)
"Software is like sex: it's better when it's free."
I think the Python work would be interesting. I'm a long-time Perl coder and Python looks interesting. But IMHO, PHP would be a waste of time. Part of the reason CPAN is so huge is that perl5 is coming up to its 10th anniversary. The perl5 language has remained very stable over that time. But PHP5 has just been released and from what I've heard it's another major change to the language. But if it's got namespaces and/or sane package management like everyone's been begging for, then PEAR might start to really pick up. I guess we'll see in another 10 years. Either PEAR will be huge success, or programmers will reminisce "Remember PHP? I think someone's coded up a Parrot compiler for that old language " :)
In my experience with CPAN I have found it follows the Larry Wall concept that there are many ways to do the same thing. For starters, there are several modules which can communicate with a POP3 server. There are many XML parsers and many means of talking to a MySQL database. Unfortunately I would not say each solution is feature complete or even good quality. It is great that it has built-in Pod Doc, but the fact remains is that it can be quite difficult to get some things done.
.NET 1.1 profile implemented by Mono to be much more appealing. While there may be fewer means of connecting to a POP3 server, there is a good chance the one that is there will work well enough.
I was able to whip together a webmail client which fetches mail from a POP3 server and parse the MIME types to display content with several Perl modules which was a pretty amazing feat with the little amount of code which I wrote. But as I wrote it I had to come up with many workarounds for incomplete features in the CPAN modules. I also found that some modules were object oriented and some were not.
So in the end I am finding things like the Java Foundation Classes or the
But I am still curious how the Ruby folks are doing. They have been committed to object-oriented programming and may be able produce higher quality solitions. Anyone doing Ruby here?
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
http://perllinux.sourceforge.net
Look at this: XHTML parser using K programming language :)
Perl is really clean language
Create RSS feed from any web page http://Page2RSS.com/
...then how'd they become the Ruling Class? You know, not every rich person is a slutty blonde bimbo heiress like Paris Hilton (someone who I'm sure would struggle to make up the bed in just one room of one of daddy's hotels). A good deal of the wealthy class is self made (particularly in North America)--perhaps your view is coloured by the more class-oriented system of the UK, where there is a fair bit more wealth through inheritance.
Jobs and Woznaik founded Apple and Jobs still runs it (hell of a lot bigger than a mere electronics store chain). I'm sure both of them would be more than capable of wiring up a 13A plug seeing as they were capable of designing, building and programming a computer (and devices allowing them to call Europe for free). And while Bill Gates came from a fairly affluent family, he was hardly a billionaire and managed to survive the early Micro-soft days in dumpy New Mexico digs and do low-level assembly programming.
And yes, I'm sure many of the owners of GM and Ford know how to change a tyre--seing as they are publicly held companies with a large number of shareholders. I'm willing to bet that the executives.management could do it (Lee Iacocca comes agross as a guy who is down-to-earth enough that he could.
My sister is the Canadian president of a multi-national corporation and not only can she peel a potato, she peeled many of them making dinner for her two kids every night as a stay-at-home mother when she was in her early twenties.
Fact is, it is no longer the 19th century, democracy is widespread and the "ruling class" is no longer so dominated by inheritance like it once was. This Marxist theory of the proletariat rising up en-masse against a ruling class dependent on workers output just doesn't wash. Today, those of the working class with the capacity and drive to step up are able to rise one-by-one. And once you are part of the "ruling class" it is human nature to defend it regardless of others actions--particularly when your wealth is earned.
Another related paper (that I didn't write) is Counting Potatoes: The size of Debian 2.2. They found that Debian 2.2 includes more than 55 million physical SLOC, and would have cost nearly $1.9 billion USD using over 14,000 person-years to develop using traditional proprietary techniques.
So what's the purpose of all these studies? Insight. There are all sorts of limitations in any measure, including any source lines of code (SLOC) measure. But, in spite of those limitations, there are things you can learn. Using tools (like SLOC counting tools) to measure software can help you understand things about the software, as long as you understand the limitations of the measure.
In particular, many studies have shown that SLOC is very strongly related to effort (so much so that you can even use equations to predict it). If you want to determine effort in CPAN, you can't just go ask people; few open source software / Free Software (OSS/FS) developers record exactly how much effort they invested. So, these kinds of measures are really helpful for estimating how much effort went into developing the software. Obviously, not all effort is equal (a genius can turn a hard problem into an easy one). And not all code is good, or even useful. But if you want to understand and measure effort, then these measures do have a value. In particular, these results have shown that OSS/FS can scale up to large projects requiring large amounts of effort.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
I use Perl every day and it has been one of the eisiest to learn and use language that I have found. The syntax to me, seems pretty clear, concise and easy to read, for instance, for a GUI example:x t=>'Hello World');
use Tk;
$win=MainWindow->new;
$label=$win->Label(te
$label->pack;
. The syntax actually is very clean and rather simple and easy to use. In my extensive use of Perl I have found the syntax to be very clean, clear, and easy to understand. I think Perl does things a little differently than other languages, and immediately when people see something that is different to them, it seems many think that there is something wrong with it. If you look at another language for the first time it might seem unusual and strange to you. I have looked at PHP, Python, C++ and Java, those languages seem difficult and strange to me when I first look at them, but thats probably because I hadn't used them enough. It shouldn't be wrong to be different. Perl does things differently but that doesnt make it bad or worse than other languages.
As far as OO goes, Perls OOs is not "bolted on". It is elegantly, carefully designed and integrated with the language. The process of creating and using a Perl module is simple and straightforward, I have done it many times, and just as easy as other programming languages. For example: use Module; $module=Module->new; $module->method(); seems pretty simple and clear to me, in fact, more elegant than some other OO languages that I have seen, in my opinion. I have used C++ and Java, and actually do prefer the design of Perls OO over other languages, it actually takes me less time to use it and code for it than it does on other languages, but thats my personal preference. I have found that with Perl OO and Perl syntax in general it is easy to write clear, good, concise code in less space than many other languages. Perl, to me anyway, requires less language verbage than say C++ or Java does, but is clear and concise.
People have different needs and tastes, and if people should use the programming tools that best suites them. Perl best suites my needs and works in a way that is natural and easy to me. It took me less time to learn Perl than it has other languages.
As far as the GUI libraries, Perl has interfaces to a wide range of GUI libraries, from GTK, QT, OpenGL, Tk, FLTK, etc. Take your pick. Tk is most often distributed with Perl, including with ActiveState Perl on Windows. I have used TK on many occassions and found it to have a very elegant and well designed, yet powerful API.
Perl modules to me seem to be very portable, I have used ones on many different OSs and programs, with no problem. There is nothing inherit in the module system that makes it unportable.
I really havent seen any of the issues that you have mentioned in my extensive use of the Perl programming language.
I only looked at a handfull of the links. It's sort of a Yahoo! (the original indexer, not todays search engine-cum-kitchen sink) for Python code, which is ok, but check out how one uses CPAN in the real world:I'm sure you can see how this makes CPAN far more useful for building a large repository of useful Perl modules. How, in Python, can you build several layers of libraries that depend on each other without this kind of repository of dependency information? How does a user "come into the know" about these factors?
Of course, that ignores the fact that CPAN modules all come with regression testing and online documentation (installed in the sytem "man" tree) as well.