Libraries and repositories

[Tony Kimball <address@hidden>]

Quoth Paul Prescod on Wednesday, 19 December:
: Tony Kimball wrote:
: > Really, Perl is a wonderful example of why Sun was right to hold Java
: > so tightly.  There can be only one.  Wall's syntax was ugly enough so
: > that no one wanted to reverse engineer it.  This was a *good thing*
: > for the success of Perl, which today is driven largely by CPAN.
: 
: I don't really see the relationship. CPAN is wonderful but it has
: nothing to do with Larry Wall holding on tightly to Perl's syntax. Perl
: is not tightly held and it has CPAN. Java is tightly held and does NOT
: have CPAN. What's your point?

The analogy is clear and simple to my perception:

Wall's language is practically irreproducible.  As a result, it
represents a single unified target platform.  As a result, it is
feasible to assemble a large library of utilities and systems built
on top of that platform.

Gosling's language is practically irreproducible.  As a result, it
represents a single unified target platform.  As a result, it is
feasible to assemble a large library of utilities and systems built
on top of that platform.

Contrast Scheme:

The language is trivially reproducible.  As a result, it represents a
vast array of divergent platforms.  As a result it is infeasible to
assemble a large library of utilities and systems built on top of that
platform.

I oversimplify, for clarity and brevity.