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

[Dan Dascalescu]

> I've once tried to start a discussion at PerlMonks about that:
> http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=515728

Nice but old and too centralized. I suggest adding a "Modules to
avoid" section on each page at the wiki page below:

>> http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl5/index.cgi?recommended_cpan_modules

Again, Data::Dumper mentioned there (before my edit).

> To add  to this - I've also started a page for comparing Form
> Processing modules at this same p5p wiki:
>
> http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl5/index.cgi?form_processing

Cool!

> but sure enough there is also a web framework page at the p5p wiki:
>
> http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl5/index.cgi?web_frameworks

Wow. I had no idea about WebGUI. Great, another framework to evaluate.
Oh, and Egg, Konstrukt, Solstice, ClearPress and TripleTail too.

...

WebGUI does have a nice least of recommended practices (albeit for
internal developers) at
http://www.webgui.org/community-wiki/development-best-practices. That
inspired me to dig the Catwiki for something similar and found KD's
stub, which I extended and moved to
http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/wiki/best_practices.

I've also conflated a section from the FAQ into this:
http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/wiki/recommended_plugins

> But there is one even more important point that I would like to make -
> I think it is time that we all start writing reviews.

And use star ratings! This is ridiculous:
http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Controller-BindLex/ has 5 stars.

(kudos to Yuval for warning against using his own module, but please,
add star ratings! It's fun to be sarcastic and not star-rate -
http://cpanratings.perl.org/dist/Moose - but that often ends up being
misleading)

Another odd problem is that some prominent folks in the Catalyst
sphere won't touch the wiki, no matter what (they're not at a loss for
words - they explain things in great detail on IRC). I don't really
know what to say to that. Maybe making an IRC bot that can be told to
write to the catwiki would be a solution.

To sum up:

1. Please star-rate and review modules you (dis)like at
http://cpanratings.perl.org/dist/My-Module

2. As Jay pointed out, Catalyst developers are indeed extremely
helpful on the IRC channel. What I'd like to ask is that when they
explain an FAQ or best practice, or anything that's been asked before,
please copy/paste your explanation on the Catwiki, and I promise I'll
format the stuff.

Dan

PS: Eventually, maybe we can then get a bot running to query catwiki
and return the top search result, a-la:
n00b: purl, Catalyst diet?
purl: Catalyst diet is thin controller, fat model or
http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/wiki/.search?search_type=all&q=catalyst+diet