Re: Tags for CPAN modules.

On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 12:44:19PM -0700, Michael G Schwern wrote:
> One of the most common cries I hear from CPAN users is that they have trouble
> finding modules.  A CPAN module is largely found by its distribution name.
> Names have to be unique and short which tends to hurt its descriptiveness.
> Furthermore, a distribution can only have one name while a module could be
> described different ways depending on how you look at it.
> 
> CPAN is organized as a simple tree hierarchy.  Hierarchies suck for describing
> the real world.  They allow for only one way to describe a thing and imply a
> hierarchy which may not exist.
> 
> Let's un-overload the distribution name by providing another axis by which an
> author can categorize their module.  The single most dominant organizational
> tool of the web:  tags.  For a large, wide, decentralized library its simple
> and the least worst way to organize things.  It provides multiple axis to
> describe the use of a module and frees up the name to be just a short, unique
> descriptor.  Best practices for tags and how to work their strengths and
> weaknesses are well understood.
> 

	This is a super idea. It might also be nice to allow cpan.org users the
ability to associate tags (which could be overridden by the author) with
modules which don't have them. That would make it a lot easier to classify
modules which don't have very active maintainership.


	Austin