[Catalyst-dev] RFC: new helper api

[Devin Austin]

Howdy all,

I've put together an RFC for the new Catalyst::Helper API.
The body text is located below, but it is also available here in a pretty
formatted version:
http://www.codedright.net/2009/06/rfc-catalysthelper-api.html

For the improvement of the Catalyst::Helper API and Catalyst development in
general, comments are of the utmost importance.  The more feedback
I can get, the better and quicker the API will be completed.

Thank you kindly!

-dhoss

*Intro:
*This document is to get opinions on a new, up to date set up  and
refactoring of the Catalyst::Helper API.

*What We Have*
Currently, all template/image data is hideously store inline with code in
the __DATA__ section of Catalyst::Helper.pm.  The API is designed to handle
data this way, which is wrong wrong wrong for a number of reasons:

   1.  You have to actually delve into Catalyst internals to edit any of
   these files
   2.  If you create a helper, your data must be inline as well.
   3.  Its current layout does not reflect the directory hierarchy of a
   Catalyst application, thus making it pretty dang hard to expand
   upon/upgrade.

There are no methods to allow you to edit previously created files, unless
you want to create your own helper and feverishly create your own file
modification method(s).
I can attest to the stress this causes, as I've been doing a good deal of
yak shaving cleaning this code up and creating the proper tests for it.
It's not a very fun ordeal at this point.

*What we want*
>From the feedback I've gathered thus far:

We *do* want previously created helper files to be modifiable via
Catalyst::Helpers.  For instance, updating Makefile.PL, updating myapp.conf
to reflect changes, updating DBIC schema files to reflect database changes
(with minimal pain). Also, add an infrastructure for modifying existing
catalyst code, e.g. moving Catalyst::Helper::AuthDBIC from an  experimental
proof of concept to something that people might actually want to use for
their own stuff.

We *do* want to be able to remove a good deal of the boilerplate code that
still seems to need to be created manually, for each app, even though it's
the exact same code for each instance.

We *do* want to set up the helper files in the hierarchy that a Catalyst
application is created in, thus cutting quickly to the chase in the way of
creating an app.  It's a simple name and Template::Toolkit variable
translation, then writing the file to the filesystem process then.  This
gets our binary data out of the API code, the template data out of the API
code, and generally makes every one more happy.

With this said, here are some more specific ideas that have been passed my
way that I think would really help further advance our precious Helper API:


   1.  Beat up MooseX::Getopt to deal with pass-through options, so you can
   deal with passing data structures as arguments easier. Not to mention
   actually start USING it in the Helper API.
   2. Add a feature to write out DBIC schema files for deployment.  Yes,
   make_schema_at does this, but you have to write your own little script to
   enjoy this morsel of functionality.  It would be nice to have it package=
d up
   and ready to go for you.
   3. Have something like TTSite, but less sucky.  Perhaps there could be a
   default layout that can be created, or you can create your own sort of s=
kin
   and have that the default generation.  Or, better yet, packaged skins th=
at
   users can submit to $somewhere and have the author choose a "theme" for
   their app. For instance, using $javascript framework and $css framework =
to
   do so, like in chapt 11 of the upcoming book (Example usage:
   http://www.uow.edu.au/~kd21/ <http://www.uow.edu.au/%7Ekd21/>)

These are the current ideas I have, and that others have submitted.  Sure
this RFC is a bit bare, but we don't have a whole ton to work with at the
moment with Catalyst::Helper, so we need more feedback to beef things up.


-- =

Devin Austin
http://www.codedright.net
http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?326568/hosting.html - Host with DreamHost!
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