Map of CPAN - The Movie

To address questions 2-4, it's a space-filling curve [1], or basically an easy way to take a line and fill a 2D space. So when a single name is added to a namespace at the beginning of the curve, that blob gets bigger, and every other blob moves 'right'. Once you stare at it a while, you can see that every blob moves along the same path, and it's slightly easier to see which blobs are growing and which are getting shoved. But I agree that it isn't easy, and I think it's because the CPAN Map wasn't meant to be time-lapsed like this.

Edit: if you go to the mapofcpan.org site and click on pixels, I think you'll figure out what the blue areas are.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-filling_curve

If you go to mapofcpan.org and click on "Need more help?" it explains more about what the map is showing you.

Only namespaces that contain 30 or more distributions get a colour and a label - to keep the map from getting too cluttered. The remaining modules are submerged under the light blue "primordial soup".

Since the individual distributions are arranged alphabetically and laid out along a Hilbert curve, adding an extra distribution to 'Acme' pushes every other namespace along.

And yeah - the Hilbert curve probably isn't ideally suited to being animated :-)