Chapter 1: CPAN

Chapter 1 - CPAN
by?Sam Tregar?
Apress ? 2002
Companion Web Site

Overview

THE COMPREHENSIVE PERL ARCHIVE NETWORK (CPAN) is an Internet resource containing a wide variety of Perl materials—modules, scripts, documentation, and Perl itself—that are open source and free for all to download and use. CPAN has more Perl modules available than any other resource, including modules for almost every conceivable task from database access to GUI development and everything in between. The primary gateway to CPAN is http://www.cpan.org.

No other programming community has a resource like CPAN. CPAN enables the Perl community to pool its strength and develop powerful solutions to difficult problems. Once a module is available on CPAN, everyone can use it and improve it. Only the most unusual Perl project needs to start from scratch.

CPAN is more than just a repository—it's a community. The modules on CPAN are released under open-source licenses, and many are under active development. Modules on CPAN often have mailing lists dedicated to their development with hundreds of subscribers.

As the name implies, CPAN is a network. CPAN servers around the world provide access to the collection. See the "Network Topology" section later in this chapter for details.