Unfortunately, the only "wonder" in the CPAN module for me, is the wonder that it continues to be used. It worked exactly once for me after install. It then screwed it own configuration, which is so complex, incestuous, unintuative and badly documented, that despite spending several sessions of several hours each on trying to unwind and understand it, I gave up. I am not easily defeated but that was just to much for me.

I discovered that I can install the modules I need, including those with binary components (if available for my system) manually via my browser in less time than it takes the CPAN module to load, connect, spin and tell me it can't find what I am looking for. YMMV, but that is my experience.