[Catalyst] RFC: The paradox of choice in web development

[Octavian Râşniţă]

From: "Dan Dascalescu" <ddascalescu+catalyst at gmail.com>
> I've just discovered Data::Dump but it appears to beat the crap out of
> Data::Dumper. Yet does it say anywhere "Hey, if you're getting started
> with Perl and need to dump variables, use Data::Dump, and don't waste
> your time investigating other modules"? If I were the author of
> Data::Dumper, I'd somehow retire the module, or plaster a note in the
> POD redirecting people to Data::Dump. Imagine a programmer new to Perl
> picks up an example that uses Data::Dumper. Will they find out about
> Data::Dump? No. Someone picks up the Catbook and learns about
> FormBuilder. Does http://www.formbuilder.org/ mention FormFu anywhere?
> No. It mentions its last update, March 2007.

I also agree, but unfortunately I don't know what should be the solution for
this kind of problems.

One of the biggest issues for the perl programmers, Catalyst users or not,
is to choose the right module for sending email, because I guess there are
tens of modules for this task.

And to increase the confusion, I have also added one more
(Mail::Builder::Simple) and a helper for Catalyst
(Catalyst::Helper::Model::Email) that helps using it in a Catalyst app.

This is because I wanted to have a perl module that can send email which
automaticly encodes the body and headers to UTF-8, in order to be able to
include special chars in them, to be able to add attachments, inline images,
to create a multipart with a text and html version without needing to create
those parts manually, to be able to create the body of the message and the
attachments by using templates, and I couldn't find a perl module that can
do this.

So a Catalyst beginner will hear that he can send email from Catalyst by
using a View, then he will find that he can also send email by using a
model, and after a few experiences like these, he won't be sure that he uses
the "right tool".

I would be very glad to hear that there is a better module for sending email
than the one I wrote, that would be higher level, that would require less
code, that would be able to send email using more types of servers, and when
I'd find it, I would surely specify in the POD documentation of that module
that I recommend the other, and I will surely start using it myself.

Octavian