[sf-perl] Browser front ends to perl back ends

[Al Sary]

Ideally you'd want to use mod_perl with a templating tool like 
HTML::Template, which is pretty simple. For anything more substantial, 
I'd look into HTML::Mason.

David Alban wrote:

>Greetings,
>
>I'm a command line person.  I use things like X Windows and screen so
>that I can get more command lines.  The tools I have written over the
>years are command line tools.  My users have been command line people.
>
>Now I'm in a situation where half my users are command line oriented,
>and half don't use it at all, and are not likely to start.  I need to
>write tools that cause and/or foster building of java code and cause
>and/or foster the deployment of code and build artifacts from a source
>code repository to different environments (dev, qa, production
>equivalent, production).  I plan to write command line perl tools.
>Command line perl tools that can be called from web front ends.  That
>way the same set of tools can be used both by command line folks and
>by gui-only folks.
>
>I have no experience in developing browser-used thingamabobs.  I've
>written html, sure, but only for basic web pages.  No moving parts
>(well, O.K., one animated gif :-).
>
>My requirements for a front end are simple:
>
>  * it has to be something which can run from a browser (say, IE or firefox)
>  * it has to be able to call command line perl programs
>
>Nice-to-haves would be:
>
>  * doesn't take too long to learn (my current plans don't include
>becoming a web developer).  the front end is for internal use only, it
>doesn't have to have bells, whistles or sex appeal, it just needs to
>work well
>  * should be as platform-independent as possible
>
>Is CGI the way to go for this?  Is PHP?  Is <something else
>altogether>?  I realize that asking this on a perl list is bound to
>tip the scale in favor of CGI, but I wanted to ask anyway, figuring a
>significant number of folks might be able to give good advice on the
>subject.
>
>Thanks,
>David
>
>P.S.  I'm not considering perl/tk because I want the tools to be
>operable from any web browser on the local network.  Plus, most of the
>windows users won't have an X server running.
>  
>