[Catalyst] catalyst++

[Garrett Goebel]

On Sep 29, 2006, at 8:39 AM, Jonathan Rockway wrote:

>>   When I looked at InstantCrud, it only worked with TT, and I want to
>> use it with Mason.  Is there a way to do this?
>
> Welcome to the world of software. :)  If you want flexibility, you're
> going to have to code it yourself.  If you want ready-to-go magic,
> you're going to have to compromise somewhere.

I think Zbigniew Lukasiak has recently mentioned plans to modularize  
forms generation. You might want to contact and work with him on  
providing the capability to generate alternate Mason views.

> Also, Jifty probably does exactly what you want (Lots of magic,  
> lots of
> mason).  Unfortunately it's a bit too clever for its own good --  
> syntax
> like:
>
> use MyWeblog::Record schema {
>
>   column title =>
>         type is 'text',
>         label is 'Title',
>         default is 'Untitled post';
>
>   column body =>
>         type is 'text',
>         label is 'Content',
>         render_as 'Textarea';
> }
>
> has to be confusing to people who are new to perl.  (Why he couldn't
> have just done

Personally I wouldn't mind seeing schema's declared using the syntax  
supported by Object::Declare. However you want to do it, declarative  
programming in general is a good thing. Last time I looked at the  
Object::Declare code though, you couldn't declare nested objects.

But isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? I have to  
agree that the Jifty people tend to spend a lot of time writing  
clever code so that perl code won't look like perl. But that hasn't  
stopped people in the Catalyst community from advocating YAML.


> Finally, I do have some ideas brewing in my mind about how to add more
> Jifty-like magic on top of Catalyst... but I'm waiting to see how
> Reaction pans out :)

A link to Reaction please? http://search.cpan.org/dist/Reaction/
Looks interesting, but it hasn't been updated since May...

How about some more specific ideas of what you'd like to see?

I would like to see a cohesive set of modules demonstrating best  
practices that'd make it easier to assemble a web application. Jifty  
seems philosophy seems to be TOTW, whereas Catalyst's is TIMTOWTDI.  
And making a framework where TIMTOWTDI is a heck of a lot harder.

Specifically, I'd like to see some:

o  generic facility for input and output filtering for forms and  
RESTful web api's
o  multi-attribute dispatch routing
o  group ACL with groups that can contain groups
o  forms interface with support for xforms and nested forms
o  view widgets

I'm still learning a lot. The tutorial is an excellent start. But  
it'd be a lot easier to come up to speed on things if there were some  
well-documented demo applications more complicated than a blog. I.e.  
something that exercised the functionality that so many of the FAQ's  
are about: File uploads, progress meters, dbic, etc. Perhaps I'll try  
to do a better job documenting my work on a chess club app and  
release that whenever I get it 90% done.

cheers,

Garrett