I am really perplexed by people who think that they can determine which modules are good to use by flipping through the realease dates. What about modules that just work and don't need frequent releases? What about modules that have prereqs which are frequently updated even if the module itself is not frequently updated? Sure, infrequent updates may be a sign a trouble (taken in connjunction with other information) but to use that as the main criterion for judging whether a module is good makes about as much sense as going by the version numbers in a system where version numbers are an individual author's choice (module X is version 2.3 and module Y is only 0.27, so module X must be more mature).
If you want to know what modules are "in good shape", ask here, read the CPAN reviews, look at rt.cpan.org, and, heaven forfend, try the module, read it's source, google for previous user complaints ...
And why is the first choice "I'll write my own" rather than exploring how you might contribute to existing modules. ... Oh that's another rant, nevermind. (and I certainly don't mean "never write your own")
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Age not being a function of 'up-to-date' is actually a problem that comes up with more than just Perl modules.
I used to maintain paper documentation, in the form of handouts that my university's computer lab maintained on how to use pine, netscape, word perfect, and the other applications that we supported. The problem was that people just didn't like getting a document that said 'last modified (three years ago)'. The commands to unix and VMS didn't change, so we had no reason to change the documentation. We ended up putting on a 'Last Verified' date on everything, and reviewing all documentation twice a year.
I try to make it a point on any sort of content management system that I maintain -- not only providing a 'last modified' but also a 'last verfied' or 'last reviewed', or something similar. (and of course, who modified or reviewed it, but I don't necessarily show that to the general users).
ps. Net::Telnet has only had 2 updates in over 7 years. It must suck. Even Net::Gopher was updated last year.
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The problem was that people just didn't like getting a document that said 'last modified (three years ago)'.
Risking the possibility of becoming slightly off-topic:
This is what made me search my modules on the CPAN by release date, get the oldest ones and do one or two minor updates. It's sad, but it's true: if the module had a new version recently, than the author must be working on it...
It they only knew what lies beneath them... muahahahahah!
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