[Catalyst] automatic form generation based on data models

[marcus baker]

"I think you will amot always find that you need to have more control
than any automated form generation will be able to give you."

Not necessarily.  I mean for an extensible "real world" web app I
agree, I'd much rather develop these kinds of things with the separate
pertinent and effective tools available instead of having to work
backwards through stock controllers and templates generated - but at
our organization there are a lot of internal mini-projects where
simple database tables just need a web interface that has a small bit
of data validation and an inherent understanding of the parent/child
relationships.  This is a bit outside of the scope of most database
guis, not to mention we wouldn't actually want to give them that
degree of access anyway.  And this is why so many on my team are all
about Django.

Having this capability might do well to entice more novice developers
to Catalyst due to this next step in ease of use and getting a quick
app running... It seemed to do well for the Rails camp.  Hopefully
from there people would then pick through and start pieceing together
for themselves how the underpinnings work, but that's up to them.

Thanks for the tips Will, I'll check out HTML::Widget and DBIx::Class::WebForm.

-Marcus

2006/11/8, Wade.Stuart at fallon.com <Wade.Stuart at fallon.com>:
>
> Ian Docherty <ian at iandocherty.com> wrote on 11/08/2006 12:35:04 PM:
>
> > marcus baker wrote:
> > > In a primarily Perl shop I've joined, Django has become all the rage.
> > > Everyone into it is amazed at the templating capabilities and the
> > > database abstraction layer (...they obviously hadn't really done much
> > > with the Template Toolkit, or even heard of Class::DBI or
> > > DBIx::Class).  Django's all fine and lovely, but personally I still
> > > prefer Catalyst due to the vastness of the CPAN library I can use
> > > behind it.
> > >
> > > The one thing about Django that keeps them from looking anywhere else
> > > is it's ability to create data-editing forms on the fly based on the
> > > data model.  In an attempt to get them to consider Catalyst a little
> > > more, I was wondering if Catalyst has this kind of capability
> > > anywhere... Is this something I should take to the CDBI/DBIxC lists
> > > specifically?
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > > -Marcus
> > I just don't understand why everyone seems to wet their pants over
> > something that 'creates data-editing forms' directly from the data model!
> >
> > As a demo application, or a simple proof of concept that it always looks
> > impressive when you can create these forms and update a few tables with
> > a few lines of code. Anyone who has written big web applications knows
> > however that it is never that simple and so the few (hours/days) that
> > can be saved in the early stages of coding are nothing compared to the
> > (weeks/months) of coding for a 'real' application.
> >
> > At the end of the day it is the additional help that something like CPAN
> > gives you combined with something like Catalyst that gives the
> productivity.
> >
> > Regards
> > Ian
>
> I agree 100%.  CRUD turns to CRAP in the real world -- much better off
> finding a framework that makes Validation and Presentation of those forms
> easy (but not automated) as I think you will amot always find that you need
> to have more control than any automated form generation will be able to
> give you.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> List: Catalyst at lists.rawmode.org
> Listinfo: http://lists.rawmode.org/mailman/listinfo/catalyst
> Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.rawmode.org/
> Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/
>