Thanks. I have been looking for a list of top downloads for perl modules (at CPAN or anywhere else). Do you know of such a list ?

I moved from awk to perl (for my scripting) around 2000, while using Java at work. However, I moved to ruby in 2004. I remember finding perl's @array and $array[n] being quite irksome. Anyway, I am thinking of revisiting perl for large shell-script apps, and I'd like to know of the most popular modules. (my work is command line/shell related, not web/Rails).

Do you have any template for your perl apps you can share. Have you put any apps up on github ?

You could check out the weekly cpan ratings[0] for "popular" modules, though I find the best appraoch is to search cpan for modules as I need them.

CPAN Modules themselves often serve as a decent template for the form and structure of a Perl application and tests, see the App:: space for standalone applications (e.g. App::cpanminus).

If you're returning to Perl (or just starting out) you can do worse than check out Beginning Perl[1] and Modern Perl[2].

There are also Perl distributions such as DWIM Perl[3] which bundle Perl and the most commonly used modules.

[0] http://niceperl.blogspot.co.il/search/label/cpan

[1] http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9781118013847/

[2] http://www.onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/index.html

[3] http://dwimperl.com/

Thanks. Seems dwim is more for web apps or servers. And its pretty new. I have downloaded Modern Perl recently and do have a lot of books on perl bought (and read) in the early 2000's.

I am wary of generally downloading modules from CPAN since I have already earlier found some to be broken, or have dependencies that are abandoned. Which is why I sort of look for a curated list that is likely to be maintained. I;ve had the same issues with ruby and other languages as well, and am careful of what I depend on. Currently, I've been bitten by ruby's unicode issues (string functions crashing out of the blue in 1.9) and am thus considering going back to perl.

A good way to find out if there are issues with a CPAN module is to look at the Test results provided by the CPANtesters smoke testing.

For eg. on TryCatch (https://metacpan.org/module/TryCatch) it currently shows... Test results (1933 / 172 / 1)

This means its tests have passed on 1933 different test machines (on various different versions of Perl & OS's). However there have been 172 machines reporting a problem. Clicking on the Test results link delves down deeper - http://www.cpantesters.org/distro/T/TryCatch.html#TryCatch-1...

From this I can see there are a lot of failures with this (version of the) module recently. So there is a new problem that's manifested itself recently in a small number of tests - http://www.cpantesters.org/cpan/report/42fb1e6c-749d-11e2-8c...

Looking at the test failure (it failed 6 out of 58 tests) I think it was fine to just force installation for now. The module owner will receive an email for everyone of these 172 smoke test failures so I doubt it will be long before he/she fixes this problem :)

That hasn't been my experience with CPAN, though cpantesters and cpanratings can serve as a guide to what works and what doesn't. This type of service does not exist for rubygems/pypi to my knowledge.

While Perl's unicode support is unparalleled, there are some things to be aware of:

http://www.perl.com/pub/2012/04/perlunicook-standard-preambl...

Here are some useful CPAN module lists:

* MetaCPAN favourites leaderboard - https://metacpan.org/favorite/leaderboard

* Task::Kensho - This is a list of recommended modules for Enlightened Perl development - https://metacpan.org/module/Task::Kensho

* Perl Best Practices CPAN module recommendations (outdated so read the notes) - http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl5/index.cgi?pbp_module_rec...

So starting from ground zero you could do...

  $ curl -kL http://install.perlbrew.pl | bash
  $ perlbrew install perl-5.16.2
  $ perlbrew switch 5.16.2
  $ perlbrew install-cpanm
  $ cpanm --force TryCatch      [1]
  $ cpanm Task::Kensho

Above took approx 30 mins to complete on my Mac here and gives you...

- Perlbrew which allows you to have multiple versions of Perl running from your home directory/folder - http://www.perlbrew.pl

- cpanminus (cpanm) integrated with Perlbrew to manage your CPAN modules per Perl version - https://metacpan.org/module/App::cpanminus

- Perl 5.16.2 with the (basic) Task::Kensho modules loaded.

[1] - There is currently a problem with a few tests on TryCatch so forcing this through first meant there were no hiccups with Task::Kensho install.