In many posts monks have sung the praises of using CPAN modules when possible, and I usually echo each song. A while back I started making the recent uploads page on CPAN a staple in my daily surfing, and found it to be a great way to find out about new modules and get quick updates on modules I already use. It wouldn't be that hard to fill up Cool Uses for Perl every day with a CPAN module.

Keeping up to date on CPAN modules has been great because there are plenty of modules out there that I wouldn't have dreamed there'd already be a solution for in a CPAN module, and probably would have never searched. Even if I would have tried a search, unfortunately there are a lot of modules on CPAN that aren't very well named, and finding them in a search might prove a bit difficult.

Yesterday a co-worker was doing searches on Google to match a list of company names to their websites. I thought about it a while and remembered seeing WWW::Search on the list recently and in about 15 minutes was able to install it, scan the docs, and write a small script to save my co-worker some time. It was pretty rewarding.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? Are there other good ways besides this site and mailing lists to keep abreast of Perl development?

I also wanted to encourage people who are new to Perl or new to using CPAN modules to take a look at the recent uploads from time to time--it may save you some headaches that you wouldn't know could be solved. Even if you don't ever use a CPAN module, it's also a great way to see what other people are doing in Perl, and may give you some ideas on how to improve your skills.

In reply to CPAN Recent, Savior by koolade

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