You and merlyn are talking past each other. merlyn, AFAICT, is talking about the number of lines in the distributions being used. You, AFAICT, are talking about the number of lines you need to use in order to stitch together the distributions. Two completely different things.

As for IDEs ... it sounds like you really haven't used Java if you feel you can say such things. Granted, I haven't either, but people whose skills I trust have and, frankly, I don't think it's as you make out. Plus, if you use ActiveState, you have Komodo which is a full-fledged Perl IDE with almost as many features as Visual Studio.

Perl means write your own code.

You are taking a position here without thinking it through.. Frankly, Perl, to me, means don't write your own code! One of the primary reasons I use Perl is the existence of CPAN. Millions of lines of code, that I did not write, that I can plug straight into any project I am working on. In fact, not only did I not write it, but I don't maintain it. Even better!

About my time, I'm paid to create components that help our development.

That's funny. That's exactly what I'm paid to do, too. And, frankly, I work solely on the components that, after researching the topic as thoroughly as I can, I cannot find a CPAN module to do it. If the component has a serious impact upon our development, I estimate a good amount of hours to do it. If I can find some CPAN module that does it for me, I can goof off the rest of the time. Perl hackers are "Lazy", remember? :-)