OK, I posted the original post and have a username now.

To extend my original point, the problem with treating module compilation failures as user skill deficiency is that it assumes that all Perl users are going to be seasoned sysadmins who have time to futz with their OS all day.

My fear, as someone who came to Perl for the elegance of its syntax, is that when faced with real world problems, largely in the web-development field, I would like to use Perl but I do not have the time to go into the intricacies of why a CPAN module fails to compile on, say, Linux or OSX.

I am competent enough to get these OS's installed and learn programming languages but I have work to do and need tools which are supposed to work to do just that. I don't blame the sincere efforts of package maintainers it's just that every failed Perl module compilation is another gallon of petrol in the tank of PHP's engine, which is racing ahead of Perl in uptake by new-to-intermediate level web developers. Alright, alright. I know Perl is used for much more than developing websites and that many Perl users don't use it for this but it should be of concern that the new kid on the block - PHP - is leaping ahead despite being an inferior language overall (design etc.).

It concerns me because I am under pressure to use PHP instead of Perl in many situations, often as a result of how incomplete a Perl ISPs offer. I can only suggest that module compilation complications MAY play a part in this.

I know many of you couldn't care less about Netcraft comparisons of mod_perl and PHP but it is important if new web developers are missing the chance to learn Perl for server-side work because PHP is becoming the standard for small-to-medium sites. It matters to me and a start could be made with Perl6 by bundling at least one templating module with the core installation. Then even if extra modules prove problematic we would have something to compete with PHP on every Perl installation.

Perl + mod_perl + Apache::Session + HTML::Mason is just too many bits 'n pieces to get the same level of performance offered by PHP. One very competent sysadmin I know, who runs his own ISP, will not offer mod_perl because he tells me the memory management in a shared sever environment is too precarious compared with PHP. Maybe parrot will help solve some of these problems. Who knows? The question for me is whether the Perl community cares.