I didn't think Mason offered any direct support for separating business objects into a separate physical layer. I thought it all lived in the Apache process.

Am I missing something?

Yes. HTML::Mason is independent of apache. Sure it has great support to run on apache under mod_perl or cgi, but it doesn't require apache or any webserver.

Yes, but does it have support for separating out business and presentation objects into separate physical layers?

I understand that Mason can be used independently of a specific web server, but (unless I'm missing something - which is entirely possible) it's still oriented around a single process. It doesn't have direct support for half your mason application living in one process talking to the other half of your mason application living in another process.

(I'm not saying Mason is bad, because it isn't. Just that it doesn't directly support this particular architectural model as far as I am aware.)