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CPAN: $677 Million of Perl

Posted by michael on from the wooden-nickel dept.

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?"

5 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Huh? by _14k4 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here, I'll repost the link from the article you never read:

    sloccount

  2. Useless Measurement? by webword · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Useless Measurement? by Geoff-with-a-G · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      Seriously.
      And it's Perl.
      I thought the whole point was that you could write a massive Perl program in a single line.
      15.4 million just tells me that CPAN is getting sloppy. Let's knock that down to say, 17 HUGE lines, okay?

  3. Relatively low? by stinkyfingers · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's relatively low because that list is in alphabetical order!

  4. Re:Perl coders make $135k/year? by Minwee · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.