I sometimes think that one of the reasons that CPAN is such a huge advantage for Perl is the ease with which you can contribute to it. It’s all very well having a tool for installing libraries from the archive, any fool can do that, but CPAN has tools for getting started with a new library too.

If I want to start a new Perl project, I do:

module-starter –module=AuthenticationFairy

and the script goes away and builds me an AuthenticationFairy directory complete with all the boilerplate stuff filled in. I know that when I look in AuthenticationFairy I’ll find a sensible directory structure, a Makefile.PL that will do the right thing, a lib/AuthenticationFairy.pm with the documentation boiler plate filled in and a test directory. And I rejoice because my yaks have been sh aved and I can get on with the interesting business of writing my first test and making sure it fails.

I’ve not found an equivalent for Ruby. Yet.

I have found sow, which is part of the Hoe package, which is definitely a start.

Are there any other tools along the lines of Module::Starter that I’ve missed?