From the Perl NOC:
It's with sad hearts that we are announcing that search.cpan.org will be retired on the 25th of June 2018.
Graham Barr originally wrote the site nearly 20 years ago -- it first went live in early 1999 -- and it quickly became an invaluable resource for Perl developers around the world.
The ability to search CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) and read Perl module documentation online helped spark many developers interest in Perl and helped to build the Perl community.
The site was originally hosted by Washington University in St. Louis on a single Solaris box. For his work on search.cpan.org, Graham won a White Camel award in 2002.
[...] In recent years maintenance has become a burden. Most of the site is running 2005 era Perl code. Luckily, there is now a viable alternative: MetaCPAN.org. The MetaCPAN team has been getting ready for the transition and is nearly ready to take over.
(Score: 5, Informative) by termigator on Wednesday May 23 2018, @11:28AM (5 children)
CPAN is not shutting down, just the old site that provides web-based searching and viewing of module documentation.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @12:05PM (2 children)
Looking deeper:
https://metacpan.org/about/faq [metacpan.org]
It looks like other parts of the distributed "ecosystem" will also have to adapt?
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday May 23 2018, @12:42PM (1 child)
I don't think it'll be a problem in that the "API" for the raw CPAN (which is not shutting down) is a single query string to search package names whereas the whole point of starting up the metacpan API project was to provide a vastly more capable modern API for searching and stuff. Or translated and removing all the weasel words the API for CPAN sucked so bad that METACPAN was created to work around it. Anything in the ecosystem that could tolerate CPAN direct will be trivial to port to the real metacpan api, and everything doing anything more complicated than searching package names already HAS to use metacpan to do it, so the impact will be minimal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @03:38PM
> Anything in the ecosystem that could tolerate CPAN direct will be trivial to port to the real metacpan api
I didn't try to find a confirmation, but someone on HN said that CPAN search links will still work, they'll just redirect to an equivalent MetaCPAN query. I assume the goal is to keep old stuff that uses CPAN search from breaking.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 23 2018, @02:33PM (1 child)
That work?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by termigator on Wednesday May 23 2018, @08:47PM
Better, but the title in the linked article is even better.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday May 23 2018, @11:31AM (1 child)
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Hyper on Wednesday May 23 2018, @01:13PM
Don't get old.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by conn8d on Wednesday May 23 2018, @01:49PM (2 children)
In my early development career, Perl was my tool of choice alongside CPAN. I always thought it was run by a large corp due to it's phenomenal usefulness. Amazing to see how a group of dedicated enthusiasts have helped the community so much.
(Score: 3, Touché) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday May 23 2018, @02:01PM (1 child)
I expect the Hawaiian ham radio operators are enthusiastically dedicating right around now.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1) by maggotbrain on Wednesday May 23 2018, @08:30PM
What do Hawaiian HAM operators have to do with CPAN? Sorry if I missed a joke.
(Score: 4, Touché) by iWantToKeepAnon on Wednesday May 23 2018, @05:46PM (2 children)
And 2018 perl code isn't a maintenance burden? :p [Disclaimer: I like writing perl.]
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 3, Funny) by darkfeline on Wednesday May 23 2018, @06:22PM
Depends. Did you write that code today or yesterday?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 23 2018, @10:34PM
Speaking as a perl dev for this site, it's a huge pain in the ass. It's still easier to fix than most anything else though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.