[sf-perl] CGI, TT, Mason

Quinn Weaver quinn at fairpath.com
Fri May 4 14:32:20 PDT 2007


On Fri, May 04, 2007 at 07:50:37AM -0700, David Alban wrote:
> [hijacking an oakperl thread...]
> 
> On 2 May 2007 at 22:44:43 -0700 Quinn Weaver <quinn at fairpath.com> wrote:
> > Hmmn, I personally wouldn't teach that to newbies.  In my opinion,
> > CGI.pm is one of those technologies whose time has come and gone.  New
> > people should be learning a templating language instead, like TT or Mason.
> >
> > It's just so much nicer to have HTML with a few funky tags, rather
> > than a bunch of calls insider a Perl program... particularly if you're
> > working with a graphic designer who's supposed to code the XHTML/CSS.
> 
> Quinn,
> 
> Would you consider giving an sfperl talk for perl-web newbies on doing
> web stuff using perl?  I've been doing sysadmin and general unix stuff
> with perl for years, but have almost no experience using perl in web
> contexts.  I was told on this list not too long ago that cgi might be
> the way to go for me because I want to put web front ends on sysadmin
> / general unix perl tools (as opposed to developing web applications).
>  Even if that's so, I'd love to hear such a talk.

I remember that thread.  Well, maybe they were right.  CGI.pm is OK for
small apps that will never have an HTML coder; it's when the apps get
big and division of labor comes up that CGI.pm is really a bad idea.
I guess my point was that someone looking to do web programming in
the large should not start with CGI.pm.  It's one of those things
that's dangerous for newbies to know. ;)

Regarding other systems... I'm planning a talk on Catalyst.  That's
the Perl answer to Ruby on Rails.  I even have a Ruby guy interested
in speaking with me and showing the RoR angle.  That talk will
probably not happen before July.

However, for your needs, Catalyst is a pretty heavy framework.  I
would look into HTML::Mason or Template Toolkit if you think you need a
templating system.  I might do (or book) a talk on using Mason or TT alone,
but I need to put my energy into doing a Catalyst talk first.  But I'll
put it on my list.  :)

-- 
Quinn Weaver, independent contractor  |  President, San Francisco Perl Mongers
http://fairpath.com/quinn/resume/     |  http://sf.pm.org/


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