On Fri, 3 Dec 1999, Jason Bodnar wrote:
> On 03-Dec-99 Gunther Birznieks wrote:
> > I think mod_perl is sufficiently hard that even as more people learn how
> > to do the simple stuff, mod_perl will still be 'difficult' enough. I don't
> > think it is like Java or Perl where the stratification is there in the
> > language knowledge. Unless mod_perl itself gets easier, I don't see it
> > beinglike ASP or JSP or Servlets (being a new technology people will
> > eventually learn).
>
> I don't see how people can say mod_perl is "hard". It's the Apache API in perl
> (with some niceties). If you know perl, you learn the API and that's that.
> It's no different than learning an API for some other product. Well, it really
> helps to understand the response process of Apache.
>
> You really can't compare mod_perl to ASP or JSP, though, IMHO. Compare those
> two technologies to Embperl or ePerl or Apache::ASP.
>
The reason it is different is that you have to be in the top 15 percentile
to debug and write mod_perl code which won't hav subtle errors.
Just putting in use strict and -w doesn't cut it. There's a load of
gotchas that people just have to understand and learn on top of Perl
skills.
> > I don't think it is about training either. It's a matter of making
> > mod_perl easier. It just really is not easy.
>
> How are you going to make it easier? Create a GUI RAD IDE (gotta get in the
> buzzwords) for creating handlers? One of the things I love about mod_perl is
> that there are enough modules out there to do what you want most of the time
> without writing your own.
>
Apache::Run is a start of whatI am talking about. But even then.
Also installation is not all that easy to troubleshoot for UNIX novices.
Again, it's hard enough finding a good perl programmer, but finding
someone who can compile everything together and understand it all is a top
15 percentile ( and I think I am being generous) skill which I don't think
simple training will help with.
You don't have to be top 15th percentile VB or top 15th percentile Java to
write ASPs or Servlets respectively. Although for servlets, I would say
top 50th at least if you don't want a completely crappy OO servlet
architecture.
>
> I don't think the fact that the mini-guide has grown so much is indicator of
> how difficult it is to learn mod_perl. You'd have to read as much to write
> stuff in ISAPI or NSAPI.
>
The fact is that most applications don't need an ISAPI or NSAPI filter, so
the need to learn it is extremely low. This is why mod_perl will be niche
unless the learning curve is much smaller. Yeah, it's as hard. But that's
the point. If it is as hard then it will always be the realm of people who
are good at Perl and now need/want to stretch their Perl skills.
Most people that I interview who say they know Perl, are at the level that
they know vaguely what use strict does and to use taintmode, but still
they create pretty reasonable web apps. But the problem is that to extend
them to a mod_perl Apache::Registry environment is a huge learning curve
for people who are already very productive web app developers.
Later,
Gunther
PS A little upbeat tidbit. Our ASP developers where I work are using
Mail::Sender wrapped in ActiveState's COM wrapper API because they finally
got sick of all the crap and problems with CDO. :)
