[Za-pm] Databases & Perl

De Villiers, Tielman tvilliers at lastminute.com
Tue May 13 10:30:13 PDT 2008


 

> -----Original Message-----
> On Behalf Of Jonathan McKeown
> Sent: 13 May 2008 13:48

> On Tuesday 13 May 2008 12:38, Anne Wainwright wrote:

> > Bear in mind that apart from my dos database I am fairly competant 
> > with Paradox. For the uninitiated, this Windows app was originally 
> > from Borland, later from Corel, and provides a database with 
> > integrated design environment where you can add your buttons and 
> > tables etc to a form and then add code to those objects to make it
go 
> > the way you want. Far more powerful than Excel was. Design 
> > of forms and reports is a snap.

Sound like MS Access to me.

> > Further confusion because so much of what I read (well, scan) on sql

> > databases refers to their use for internet applications and how to 
> > view the data through your browser.
> 
> Another way to develop an application which looks good and is 
> easy to use with a mouse is to make it a Web application. 
> This is very popular because the application now only needs a 
> Web browser installed on the client rather than the whole 
> application, and using HTML as your output format offloads a 
> lot of the nonsense involved in managing the gory details of 
> screen layout onto the browser.

Yep, this sounds like a good candidate for a webapp.

> > As you can see I am lost in the desert here. Any comments on how the

> > ground is laid out these days and which path I should take 
> > are most welcome.
> 
> If I were in your shoes, I would probably take the web 
> approach: it gives you much more flexibility in the long run 
> (can easily move from Windows to Linux etc). Having decided 
> that, I would probably look at web frameworks, such as 
> Catalyst for Perl (there are similar frameworks for other 
> languages), which make the whole process less painful.

You might also want to look at Mason, a Perl-based templating engine.

> 
> Bear in mind another of Perl's strengths is the DBI database 
> interaction module.

Definitely.


I'd recommend to spend a lot of time thinking about your data and 
how to convert to a relational database (PostgreSQL, MySQL or 
even Oracle XE) and making the *database* your application. Then 
you can play with CGI scripts/web frameworks/GUIs, knowing
all of these are just interfaces to your *real* application.

--tielman




More information about the Za-pm mailing list