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"The CPAN is Perl's killer-app."

So said Nat Torkington during the Lightning Talks at YAPC; I wasn't in the room. It's the one thing that all the other languages want and, for the life of me, can't seem to figure out. Take for example, PEAR which is an acronym for something that translates as the CPAN for PHP. I wouldn't count myself as a PHP god but I am no stranger to the language either. I have yet to be able to suss out what the hell PEAR is and, more importantly, how to use it. Sure, it usually helps to be root if you want to use the CPAN for installs but, at the very least, it's nothing more than a giant, searchable list, organized by topic, with pointers to README files and tarballs. If I want to use the File::Find::maptree PHP function, I can only guess that I have to recompile the whole of mod_php itself. Well, duh... There are times in life -- I know you're not going to want to hear this -- when you don't have root and the powers that be aren't interested in hearing what you have to say. I am willing to admit that I'm missing something here, but is PEAR a package unto itself or just a framework for distributing thrid-party functionality? I thought the whole point was to set up a system that would build on itself and make small steps towards preventing people from reinventing the wheel (in theory atleast.) What's the point in creating a generalized archive if I have install everything in it? Why can't I just go to the PEAR site and grab that which I need? Where the hell are the fucking files?! Anyway, the best line from YAPC : All your Damian are belong to us.

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