[Catalyst] Has anyone read the book "Catalyst 5.8 : The Perl MVCFramework" yet?

Tue Oct 26 07:36:05 GMT 2010

On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 8:03 AM, Octavian Rasnita <orasnita at gmail.com> wrote:
> IMHO the dispatching is a very important chapter for a web framework,
> especially for Catalyst that has so many things to offer in this field.
>
> And another important thing is to show how Catalyst works alone, without an
> ORM, without a templating system, without a form processor, with the warning
> that this not the right way to do it, but it is very important for the
> beginners to see which are the things that depend on Catalyst and which are
> those that depend on the ORM or templating system.
>
> And another important thing is to use a lot of warnings that "This is not
> the right way" when DBIC code is used in the controllers for beeing easier
> to understand by the beginners, but to let them know that that way of doing
> things should be avoided.
>
> And it should be very helpful to show examples of models that get data and
> save data, but models that don't use an ORM like DBIC.
>
> --Octavian
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kieren Diment" <diment at gmail.com>
> To: "The elegant MVC web framework" <catalyst at lists.scsys.co.uk>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 7:57 AM
> Subject: Re: [Catalyst] Has anyone read the book "Catalyst 5.8 : The Perl
> MVCFramework" yet?
>
>
> Wrong book.  The discussion was about the new edition of the Packt book. You
> appear to be referring to the Apress book "The Definitive Guide to Catalyst"
>
> With the Apress book, we assumed that you could read the freely available
> tutorial already, so our aim wasn't to duplicate that.
>
> Should we ever go to second edition I'd like to significantly expand the
> cookbook chapter (which I must respectfully disagree is of great usefulness
> to the beginner - I'm also strongly of the opinion that the Chained dispatch
> type chapter is also of great use to the beginner, although the point may
> not be immediately apparent until you start designing your own application's
> dispatch structure).
>
> On 25/10/2010, at 11:23 AM, John Karr wrote:
>
>> It came out just as I was trying to learn catalyst. From a beginner
>> perspective it wasn't of any value -- thankfully Kennedy Clark has been
>> doing an excellent job with the Tutorial on CPAN, because that's how I
>> figured most things out. I was severely disappointed with the book, and
>> not
>> the least concerned with LOLCats and Kitty Pidgin. The people who wrote
>> the
>> book are a very knowledgeable group and sometimes their book works as a
>> reference, but overall doesn't seem add a lot to what's already in the
>> documentation, while being of no value to beginners whatsoever.
>>
>>
>>
>> It would be nice to have a good beginner book and a more advanced book. If
>> any of the more advanced programmers on this list would like someone to
>> help
>> with writing the beginner book, don't hesitate to get in touch!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Philip Medes [mailto:pmedes_2000 at yahoo.com]
>> Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 5:33 PM
>> To: The elegant MVC web framework
>> Subject: Re: [Catalyst] Has anyone read the book "Catalyst 5.8 : The Perl
>> MVC Framework" yet?
>>
>>
>>
>> I actually read the first 2 chapters and tried the examples.   I haven't
>> had
>> time to finish the book.
>> I haven't read any other books on Catalyst, but I do like the Sitepoint
>> books better ("Build Your Own Ruby On Rails Web Applications").
>>
>>  _____
>>
>> From: Kiffin Gish <kiffin.gish at planet.nl>
>> To: catalyst at lists.scsys.co.uk
>> Sent: Fri, October 1, 2010 3:15:47 PM
>> Subject: [Catalyst] Has anyone read the book "Catalyst 5.8 : The Perl MVC
>> Framework" yet?
>>
>> I recently received a copy of the book "Catalyst 5.8 : The Perl MVC
>> Framework" for review, have read it and tried out the examples.
>>
>> Before I make my judgments public, I'd first be curious to hear from
>> others in the Catalyst Community about what their views are on the
>> book.
>>
>> Those that have "actually read" the book, that is. I've already seen a
>> couple blog entries and they tend to be fairly negative (we sure prefer
>> to rant).
>>
>> --
>> Kiffin Gish <Kiffin.Gish at planet.nl>
>> Gouda, The Netherlands
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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>

I want to toss in my experience with the books. "The Definitive Guide
to Catalyst" (Apress) is the one I'd recommend. I read it once when I
was fairly new to Catalyst and then I didn't consider it a perfect
beginners book.

I couldn't grasp many of the concepts explained there. But with time
spent working with Catalyst you notive how parts of what you've read
are stuck in your head and you return to the book to reread chapters.
Some things I wouldn't have understood if they hadn't been explained
before in #catalyst

Lately i've read the book again and this time everything made sense.
In summary, if you want to learn Catalyst, buy this book, read the
Online Tutorial. Build some applications, read the book again. Hang
out in #catalyst. ... and eventually you will get the hang of it.