[Catalyst] So, what do we want in the -next- book?

[J. Shirley]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 9:11 AM, rahed <raherh at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/27/08, Ali M. <tclwarrior at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > i completly oppose another cookbook for catalyst
>  >
>  >  catalyst need an indepth book that describe its design!
>  >  the first book was very much a learning by example book, which is
>  >  close to a cookbook
>  >
>  >  and the main complain or the bad review where that, after reading the
>  >  book, developers still didnt not understand how catalyst work (for
>  >  exampl how subroutines attributes are used)
>  >
>  >  we need a book with diagrams that exlpain the different pieces of catalyst
>  >
>  >  a cookbook maybe be easier to write, but its not what i think is needed
>  >  a cookbook is for people who already knows catalysts, this book trend
>  >  will make catalyst a very exclusive framework only used by perl
>  >  experts!
>  >
>  >
>
>  I would also prefer a deeper explanation to a cookbook, though the
>  cookbook is occasionally quite handy.
>  How the framework works with existing applications - mod_perl, fastcgi
>  (pros and cons), interfacing to web services, problems with forking.
>
>  Reading the used code is sometimes necessary but also much more
>  tedious, e.g. going through SOAP::Lite which I'd like to use at the
>  moment from the framework.
>
>  --
>  Radek
>
>
>

I think there is a bit of confusion, really.  There is this idea of an
"Internals of Catalyst" book which won't ever fly.  The idea is that
it will make people to be better programmers or build better
applications, but that isn't going to magically happen.

If you want to know the internals of catalyst, do as Jonathan said and
fire up a code browser and get started.  Alternatively, just read the
pod for all the Catalyst components; they are very well documented and
easy to understand.  That should take all the mysticism out of
Catalyst, and if it doesn't, your issue isn't with understanding
Catalyst but with perl itself (and there are plenty of books to help
with advanced perl knowledge.)

If you want a book on building better applications, that is a separate
book right there.  It's a general purpose, abstract idea of not being
lazy and thinking of how to do things better that fit in with the MVC
design.  It has very little to do with Catalyst, aside from that being
the tool of choice.  Even with the best hammer you can build the worst
house.

If you don't want a cookbook of sorts, the options are fairly limited
in how it interacts with Catalyst.  So, maybe the next book should
instead be "Building Web Applications in Perl" and coordinate w/ the
Jifty camp and talk about the philosophical ideas.  If what O'Reilly
is saying about a single framework not having a market share
(including Rails), it sounds reasonable to explore that option.

-J