Hello Frank, I am overwhelmed by your profound in-depth description of the two somewhat contending projects.
>From it I can instantly conclude that Catalyst is definitely not my cup of tea, probably at least for quite a while. Remember that I am not a web developer but merely an average Unix admin who pretty much enjoys writing Perl scripts (and sometimes modules) for mundane sysadmin tasks. I really would appreciate if only I could implement some sort of "show case" web application (which of course should do something useful nonetheless) in an overseeable amount of Perl code that still can be handled by a sole individual, just to kind of juxtaposition to the many bloated Java based monster apps we have running on our servers, and which hopefully embarrasses those for their wasteful exploitation of system resources. So CRUD development would be perfectly in order for me. Cheers Ralph -----Original Message----- From: Frank Carnovale [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 1:01 PM To: Grothe, Ralph Cc: Maypole-users@lists.sourceforge.net; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: perl vs php vs java hi ralph for a beginner's project Maypole is a good idea because you can more or less get everything working in a basic database application, and you only have to understand half as much documentation as Catalyst. All of the investment you put into Maypole will not be wasted if you move to Catalyst; Maypole is sort of a subset of Catalyst. That's not surprising.. Catalyst was founded after a bitter dispute between Simon Cozens and the guy who took over maintenance of Maypole from him, namely Sebastian Riedel. In late 2004, Ian and I watched in horror as Maypole, the framework we had recommended for a career-defining project, became briefly the subject of a holy war and then became briefly maintainer-less until finally Catalyst burst upon the scene in what looked like an attempt at one-upmanship. Catalyst attempts to take a fully general view of everything, which means that for a real-world project you have to study and specify exactly every optional bit you want, such as the engine, the steering wheel and the brakes. It takes a long time to appreciate just how raw and "pure" and empty the core Catalyst framework is. Getting started is really frustrating because the introductory documentation seems to make absolutely no sense at all, and like any CPAN module you end up needing to study the internal source code long into the night. With Catalyst, prepare for some long nights. So for the application that most people want, namely a basic RDBMS "crud" app, there is a long learning curve. I learnt a lot from the "Enzyme" Catalyst framework add-on and based our project work on a re-write of it (as the author suggested); now the InstantCRUD Catalyst framework add-on is an option but I would still prefer Enzyme. You actually end up re-writing many parts of these add-ons in a real-world application but they are great samples of how to get started with Catalyst + ClassDBI (or DBIXClass) and TT. Mostly I lilke the built-in logging, the stand-alone http server, and the modularity of Catalyst. Maypole makes the whole learning curve quicker for a simple RDBMS "crud" app but does not have so many plug-and-play options. Our very large-scale based app in 2004 used Maypole as a starting point. For two years now the new maintainers of Maypole have been struggling with a philosophical dilemna.. do they add lots of pluggable optional bits and so make it more like Catalyst, or do they just make it very easy to put up a quick CRUD app and let choices like Apache, Class::DBI and TT be the default assumptions until overriden. I think that despite all the discussion they've stalled a little bit and fallen behind. Meanwhile the Catalyst community has contributed dozens of useful modules and plugins. So if you plan on going really far, I suggest Catalyst because a Catalyst team that has completed its long learning curve will out-perform a Maypole team that completed its short learning curve. For several large major projects this year, I have moved to Catalyst and developed my own CRUD framework on top of it. It's been the right way to go in the long run. Ian.. you need to pitch in here and tell Ralph if he should be using Maypole instead. frank [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Frank, many thanks for your encouragement to delve into Maypole, and especially for your kind offer to help. I am absolutely convinced that it will pay manyfold despite the steep learning curve. I have just yesterday begun to read the more recent article by Simon that is from a beginner's view like mine a bit misnomed as "Tutorial" because it silently predicates on too many prerequisites. As already said, I haven't had any exposure to the Template::Toolkit for instance so far, to name but one of the prerequisites. So I guess I will have to criss-cross read a lot of PODs while experimenting. But I trust that my command of Perl itself will suffice. As Simon wrote in his article, Maypole should be seen as far more than a mere database interface. But this very basic application I think lends itself much better to get started. So I thought to get a smooth intro that I could set up a small database (MySQL or Informix) of our servers or similar hardware, and wrap that in a Maypole application. As you mentioned Catalyst. What's the difference to Maypole? Which has the wider user base? Which of the two would you recommend for a beginner's project? Many Greetings from Berlin to Down-Under Ralph -----Original Message----- From: Frank Carnovale [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 12:36 PM To: Grothe, Ralph; Maypole-users@lists.sourceforge.net Cc: Ian van der Poel Subject: perl vs php vs java Dear Ralph, I was very impressed with the words you wrote about Perl, that Ian copied to me. I felt the same as you several years back, and since then have been invovled in several application development projects using both Maypole and Catalyst. Even thought there is a big learning curve, it's worth it. We have used both the above frameworks with great success in real world projects here in Australia. If you like, I am happy to answer any particular questions you may have. Ich wunsche dir viel Glueck in learning these frameworks. I can assure you that it is superior to anything that the PHP or the Java guys have come up with. regards Frank Carnovale. FYI - Some very true words spoken here. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 30/10/06 9:50 pm >>> Hello Maypole Users, I've just joined your mailing list. Though I'm not a webdeveloper but merely a sysadmin who is plagued with a plethora of Java based application servers (tomcat, jboss, weblogic etc.) which are a steady cause for keeping us Unix admins entertained, I've long been searching a Perl based web application server. This is because, first of all I simply love Perl, and second because from all my gruesome (admin) experience with missbehaving Java and PHP based web application servers, I am contrary to popular beleive absolutely convinced that Perl is a much more appropiate language for the purpose, not to mention impact it would have on simplifying the administration for the average Perl-gnostic Unix admin. I haven't yet read much about Maypole. Therefore I wanted to print excerpts from the online documentation on the project's home page for later perusal in public transport or at home. Sadly I only could print the 1st page of any online doc, and I didn't find a doc tarball or similar for download (n.b. my user agent is Firefox) Regards ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Maypole-users mailing list Maypole-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/maypole-users
