I am just wondering what would be the best method to improve the information that comes with Perl modules and to make it easier to chose one, especially when faced with 2 (or more) which offer similar features

In my experience the README's on CPAN and the Perl Testers results are not enough to make an educated choice. I know that CGI.pm is used all over and that it is production strength, but how can I choose between XML::Cong, XML::Config and XML::Simple which all seem to do the same thing (the answer is probably XML::Simple, but I only know this because I read the Perl-XML mailing list)?

I think that an area where people could indicate whether they use a module, how happy they are with it, put links to code that use it and generally any kind of information that would help people to choose, then to use modules could really be useful. This could be either on CPAN, on use Perl; or even here on the Perl Monks site. This could in turn be linked from CPAN or from the module README files.

What do you think?

In reply to Perl Module evaluation mechanism by mirod

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