[Catalyst] Catalyst Documentation

[Gavin Henry]

<quote who="Kieren Diment">
> Apologies for the arrogance :)
>
> I think that the point I was making was that Mason seems to require custom
> systems in place, and iirc from when I looked into mason, a long time ago,
> also requires mod_perl, a problem in a shared hosting environment.  Perin
> expressed this much more clearly than me, clearly because he has
> significant
> experience with Mason, which I do not.
>
> Technology goes through iterations - as in the progression from mechanical
> pianos, to wax cylinders to discs and so on.  Mason is an excellent
> example
> of high quality stuff from the previous iteration of web development
> methodology.  Because of my circumstances I wouldn't be able to be
> involved
> in serious web development without something like catalyst to take out the
> repetetive strain.
>
> As mentioned previously, the catalyst documentaton:
>
> svn co http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/repos/Catalyst/branches/Catalyst-docs
> currently in the docs branch of the svn repos is essential reading.

Which we are all trying to improve for free with our free limited time.

Gavin.

>
> svn co http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/repos/Catalyst/branches/Catalyst-docs
>
> On 01/06/06, Paul Wallingford <paul at cybergestalt.net> wrote:
>>
>> Perrin Harkins wrote:
>> > On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 07:47 +1000, Kieren Diment wrote:
>> >
>> >> Mason is a templating system with a few application-development type
>> >> features included. Catalyst is a full blown application development
>> >> environment.  Mason makes a serviceable Catalyst View, although I
>> >> perfer Template Toolkit for a couple of reasons.
>> >
>> > I think you're exaggerating the differences here.  Although they go
>> > about it in totally different ways, Mason and Catalyst offer very
>> > similar functionality.  For example:
>> >
>> > - Flexible ways to map URIs to code.
>> > - Uniform API for access to request data and passing parameters.
>> > - Abstraction of runtime environment so that mod_perl, CGI, and
>> FastCGI
>> > all work the same.
>> > - Error handling with helpful debug screens.
>> > - Plugins for sessions and other extras.
>> >
>> > You could say that Mason has MORE ground to cover in the docs, since
>> it
>> > actually includes a templating system and a cache, while Catalyst just
>> > provides glue code.  (The cache is provided by Cache::Cache, but is
>> > covered nicely in the Mason docs.)
>> >
>> > My point is not to belittle Catalyst, but rather to say that Mason is
>> a
>> > good example of a complex Perl project with very readable docs, and
>> it's
>> > worth looking at.  The quality of documentation was one of the things
>> > that set Mason apart from the very beginning, and I think it was a key
>> > reason for Mason's success.  It came with guides for developers and
>> > administrators and had a more professional feel to it than most of the
>> > other tools at that time.
>>
>> Thanks for the reply Perrin.  I am very familiar with Mason and have
>> built a lot of stuff that does what Catalyst does.  However, I am
>> looking for something to speed development - and a framework like
>> Catalyst just might do the trick.  Building custom systems each time
>> takes too long and I don't have time to build my own framework.
>> Catalyst *seems* to fit the bill and I want to evaluate it, but the
>> documentation seems lacking.  Maybe I am just spoiled with Mason.
>>
>> That said, obviously I feel that Catalyst has a lot to offer, otherwise
>> I would not even consider wasting valuable time evaluating it (and there
>> are a lot of other frameworks that I have discounted right off the bat).
>>   This says a lot about my opinion of Catalyst.  Plus a lot of people
>> use Catalyst and Mason together, which is encouraging.
>>
>> I was a bit turned off by the arrogant reply by Kieren, however.  I just
>> wanted a little guidance, not some overblown sales pitch.
>>
>> Thanks again.
>>
>> Paul Wallingford
>>
>>
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