[oak perl] Requests for Advise: Perl CGI or PHP?

Zed Lopez zed.lopez at gmail.com
Fri Dec 2 15:15:50 PST 2005


I'd say no. Once you know HTML::Template (and it works well with
CGI::Application for lightweight dynamic sites) -- and neither is hard
to learn -- your overall lines of code+HTML will be shorter, easier to
read, easier to modify, and faster to write.

Not doing it would be what the Camel Book calls false laziness.

Doing thorough research of all the frameworks and using something like
Maypole might be overkill for a simple personal site.

Another bonus of this separation is that it facilitates moving the
system to a different framework, 'cause all of their separations are
fairly similar. If you've written a mass of mixed HTML & code there's
nothing for it but to start over.

On 12/2/05, Eugene <eugene at metaart.org> wrote:
> Hi Zed,
> Thanks for even more input.
>
> I see your point.
> However, I wonder if this isn't overkill
> for a simple personal site.
>
> Eugene
>
> On Friday 02 December 2005 10:51, Zed Lopez wrote:
> > If you're working in Perl, check out Template Toolkit or
> > HTML::Template (the latter is probably a better idea if you're without
> > mod_perl -- TT is pretty hefty.)
> >
> > That way you're neither putting (Perl) code in HTML or HTML in code.
> >
> > Most web programmers (including me) will tell you that you're doomed
> > if you don't use a model-view-controller framework in which you
> > separate the presentation code (view), the navigation &
> > user/permissions/session management code (controller), and the
> > application logic (model). Using a template system enforces the
> > separation of view from everything else to a large degree -- it
> > becomes more difficult to intermix things in a bad way, so it acts as
> > an implicit reminder not to.
> >
> > It's not that you can't have a good separation with Perl mixed with
> > HTML (Mason is one popular Perl web programming framework that does
> > just this), but it makes it easy to violate the separation without
> > even necessarily noticing you do so.
> >
> > And it's not that I favor systems that hamstring you in an effort to
> > enforce good coding practices (I can rant at length at how tedious and
> > annoying I find Python, where that was a major design consideration),
> > it's that I haven't felt hamstrung in good template systems -- they do
> > a lot for you.
> >
> > Of course, I've been out of web programming in Perl for over a year
> > and there could be some latest, greatest thing I've never heard of.
> > I'd be sure to do some research and to check out CGI::Prototype,
> > Maypole and Catalyst, for starters if I were to embark on some more.
> > (These are more controllers than template engines, or they were last I
> > looked.)
> >
> > Perlmonks.org is a good place to search for info on this (or related
> > matters) -- you get a lot of commentary on things from people who've
> > been in the trenches.
>
>
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