[Catalyst] Re: Last Chance / Last Day: Webdevelopmentplatformcontestand Perl / Catalyst

[Octavian Rasnita]

From: "Dan Dascalescu" <ddascalescu+catalyst at gmail.com>

> Two weeks ago, I embarked on building a web application and researched
> the Perl framework offers. Catalyst seemed the most mature, flexible
> and with the best community support. I went to the documentation - in
> POD format. Not a big deal. I reached the tutorial at
> http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Manual/lib/Catalyst/Manual/Tutorial.pod...
> and my enthusiasm vanished. The tutorial was very hard to grasp,
> mainly because it seemed to focus on DBIC more than Catalyst itself. I
> talked to several folks on #catalyst about this and they all seemed to
> agree. I had put away my hope in Catalyst for a while.

I have started learning Catalyst for a little more time, but I followed the 
same way.
I have started learning Catalyst in order to be able to make a very simple 
site with access to a database, at the beginning with no authentication and 
no DBIx, because I don't know DBIx.
Each time I have tried to do something, I have seen DBIx appeared, and each 
time I postponed learning of Catalyst until I will know better DBIx.
I have found DBIx pretty hard to learn because I was already thinking to 
some more complex SQL queries, and I didn't know how to make them possible 
using DBIx.

> I tend to think many Perl programmers may have preceeded me. People
> like novelty but fear change. Catalyst looked too hairy for me from
> the documentation that I was able to find at that point.

Oh yes. I did the same. So I have started learning CGI::Application instead, 
because I have found it much easier to use.
But now I am nowhere because I have discovered some bugs in CGI::Application 
(when setting some headers) and I don't really like to start learning first 
the workarounds.
So I still believe in Catalyst, but my opinion is that "The elegant 
framework" should first prove that it is really elegant.
Otherwise, ...what can I say to those who say that RoR is the best?

> What I'm saying is that every language brings its frustrations. When
> I'm asked why I prefer Perl to PHP I redirect the asker to
> http://tnx.nl/php . What if we build a list like that for Catalyst?
>
> Even more aggressive. Get Matt to expand a bit on why X is toss or Y
> is a half-framework. Actually target the weaknesses of other
> frameworks and languages and showcase how Catalyst and Perl overcome
> them. It may sound childish and flame-war-ish. I'll let you
> intellectuallize the presentation; I just saw how powerful this kind
> of marketing was.

Marketing is hard to be made in perl's world, because "there are more ways 
to do it", and each one have its own preferences.
Of course, there are more ways to do it in every language, but for perl, the 
correct expression should be: "There are too many ways to do it". :-)
There is no "the most important" templating system in perl, or the best 
module for creating configuration files, or other "bests", so Catalyst 
should try beeing compatible with all of them, because otherwise it would 
lose the interest of some programmers.

This involves too much work for programming, and no time for marketing, so 
the program could be the best, but very few know or trust it.

It is good that perl allows us to choose from those many ways, but I think 
that perl would have a much bigger success if it would have a single strong 
module for creating configuration files that could do everything, and a 
single templating system that can also do everything a programer could need, 
and a strong framework that would be used by almost all the perl 
programmers. In taht case everyone will be interested to improve those 
modules, and no others.
The perl community is still big, (but not very), but very divided, and it is 
easier to be "conquered" by other languages.

In the last time I have seen more and more discussions about the fact that 
"perl is not dead". Well, when people say that something is not dead, it 
means that thing is on the way to the hospital at least, and this is not 
good.

Teddy