I'm going to have to agree with several other people, that your title does not really fit your content. Some points that I grasp, after having read this several times are:

• CPAN isn't the be-all and end-all of Perl
• You prefer Ruby (for various reasons)
• OO isn't taught properly
• Large systems need lots of customised code
• Good programmers are needed to do a good job

Maybe I've missed a few, but: Isn't all this true no matter what language you use? Fine, Ruby has builtin libraries for lots of stuff that Perl has on CPAN, I don't see how that prevents it needing lots of customised code for a large system, I would have thought all of them do, otherwise we could just hangup our hats and point anyone needing software at the library/CPAN.

CPAN doesn't contain the solution to everything, it can't. Generally when a post gets answered with 'go look on CPAN', its because the gist of the problem lies with the OP attempting to reproduce poorly what some CPAN module already does neatly. Once that part of the code has been replaced, the actual business logic can be fixed.

Similarly, when it comes down to it, you always need a good programmer to get good work done, no matter what the language. Good in the language, that is.

Anyway, CPAN isnt responsible for any of all this, that I can see. True, it contains some wonky wheels, thats why the rating system was started, I believe, a community effort will always attract some not-so-good stuff.

Oops, gotta go to work, more later maybe...

C.