Hi all,
we also have a big code base whose starting point is more than two decades ago.
If you have developers who know their stuff and all the internal developed
modules
and helpers you're good to go. BUT: We do have problems to get young, fresh
perl developers. Why? This language is simply unattractive to young people.
If I had to start a web application today on an empty field I wouldn't choose
perl.
There is another point. When we started all logic was done in the backend.
Nowadays much is done in the browser itself with Javascript. You need this
Javascript knowhow in any case. And when you have it there is no big step
to using this in the backend too.
So, in my opinion there is a relevant difference between starting a project
or maintaining an (very) old one. Maintaining an old code base where you're
stuck to years of old code is not attractive to new developers in any case.
mod_perl? The opinions may vary. But we're trying to get rid of it. In the
old days mod_perl with apache was the one and only process doing
everything. Now it's common to have serveral tiers. In the front a
load balancer which probably also terminates SSL. Some lightweight
servers serving static stuff as fast as possible, and one or more servers which
act as application server. As soon as several stages of request processing
are not done in Apache (e.g. Rewriting, Dispatching, Logging) you only
use one stage of Apache to produce the content. And this can be done
with a native perl application server.
Don't understand me wrong. We program in Perl, we know Perl more or less,
we have a big code base in Perl. But I won't start a new project on an empty (!)
field with it. But our field is NOT empty because we have so many known own
libraries and modules for all the common cross application requirements that
it would last very long to build these in a different language.
At the end you need people to do it. And you have to see how much legacy
code base and knowledge is there.
Regards
Andreas
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: James Smith <j...@sanger.ac.uk>
Gesendet: Dienstag, 4. August 2020 09:37
An: Wesley Peng <m...@yonghua.org>; modperl@perl.apache.org
Betreff: RE: suggestions for perl as web development language [EXT]
Perl is a great solution for web development.
Others will disagree but the best way I still believe is using mod_perl - but
only if you use it's full power - and you probably need a special sort of mind
set to use - but that can be said for any language.
>From experience - it may be fractionally slower than small "standalone" apps
>that dancer etc are good at, but it is (a) much, much more stable {dancer etc
>does not cope well with either large requests or lots of small requests}, and
>(b) if you have a large code base and/or a large number of services then it
>generally uses much less compute power than the others {can easily handle
>multiple services on a single apache instance}
Where it really gains is the hooks into the apache process - being able to add
functionality easily at any stage in the request process, from path
translation, AAA stages, pre-processing, to post-processing and logging, and
also to interact with other languages at any stage - e.g. can handle
pre-processing & post-processing around a script written in another language
(e.g. PHP, Java) or produced by another webserver integrated by mod_proxy.
It isn't really a framework though like dancer or mojolicious and thus has its
own advantages and disadvantages.
You would to some extent have to roll your own code to produce the pages
themselves although there are libraries out there to do lots of it.
We have an in house library whose embryonic stages were written over 20 years
ago - and has now been stable for around 12-13 years and works strong...
James
-----Original Message-----
From: Wesley Peng <m...@yonghua.org>
Sent: 04 August 2020 06:43
To: modperl@perl.apache.org
Subject: suggestions for perl as web development language [EXT]
greetings,
My team use all of perl, ruby, python for scripting stuff.
perl is stronger for system admin tasks, and data analysis etc.
But for web development, it seems to be not as popular as others.
It has less selective frameworks, and even we can't get the right people to do
the webdev job with perl.
Do you think in today we will give up perl/modperl as web development language,
and choose the alternatives instead?
Thanks & Regards
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