Perl needs a new, snazzy web application server right now. Something that has the performance of mod_perl but doesn't expose Apache's internals; something as easy to install as PHP or RoR, with a great name and a great API. (A toned-down version of mod_perl coupled with T2T and Mason would suffice.)

I completely agree.

Why aren't people shouting about Catalyst!

It's the best thing to happen to Perl in a long time.

The last time I looked at it, it had almost no usable documentation, a weird development process that made a lot of existing software obsolete very quickly, and some design decisions that frightened me. That was several months ago; I haven't had time to look again.

It's also not a replacement for mod_php, which is what I believe the original poster wanted.

.. Says a man who's worked on the internals of Everything, which at first glance also seems like a real crazy idea :)

Certainly the documentation has improved 100-fold in the last few months, the newest version had docs as its big goal. As for the dev process, I'd appreciate if you'd qualify that remark, preferably on the mailing list where the core devs can answer your concerns.

Can't say I have a clue about mod_php though.. If its "html pages with code in", nope, Catalyst doesn't replace that. Although one can use a PHP view :)

C.

The development of Catalyst was moving fast and I think this was a good trade off for documentation and API stabillity at this stage of development. I know you can use this reasoning as an excuse for every project and I don't have any ready theory here - but for sure it depends on the size of the project and Catalyst being quit a big one needs some more time in the 'rapid prototyping' phase. Now the documentation is improving and I believe the API is quite backward compatible.

Well, despite what Perl snobs may think, people are not going to learn Perl because it's cool and "post modern."

Strawman. Citation please.

Seeing that that article is some 7 years old does that make Perl a "Post-Post-Modern" language now then?

Surely the whole "post modern" bubble has gone now, much like the Web 2.0 thing will at some point. Declaring a paradigm change by fiat is just, well, so post modern...

;-p

/J\

No, the part where Perl snobs think that people will learn Perl because it's a postmodern programming language, not the speech where Larry said he considers it a postmodern programming language.

Did you notice that article was 7 years ago?

Wrong. The universe did not begin in 1994.

Right. And how many people used Perl before 1994?

Nice synecdoche, but it's a logical fallacy.

How? For as long as the two have coexisted, the Perl community has been snobbish towards the web, with a "you need us more than we need you" attitude.

Strawman. Citation please.

Citation? To what, a Zogby poll? Ask Perl programmers why they learned Perl. Most of them will tell you, Because of CGI.

What is your definition of a "real programmer"? It's difficult to argue against this without a definition.

Someone who knows how to write good, solid, maintainable software, and does so either as an occupation or during their free time.

I've seen people lambasted for believing that U.S. Astronauts actually landed on the moon too.

Yes, people often get attacked for telling the truth.

Have you tried to add a feature to Perl 5? I have. Perhaps you should listen to the people who've patched Perl 5 when they say "Ouch. That hurt."

Why, Chromatic, just refactor it over and over again! Isn't that what you XP zealots always tell us? Unless you think it would have taken equally long (6+ years) to reshape the Perl 5 codebase into Perl 6, then I think you'd have to admit that the rewrite was a big mistake.

Contributors welcome. If you haven't or don't contribute, go fall off of a cliff, learn Ruby, become a circus clown, lock yourself in a little box for ten years eating food through a straw, or pack it all in to paint Elvis on velvet. I don't care. Your opinion doesn't matter.

See, that's the thing. I don't expect you or the rest of Perl's upper-crust to abort their doomed course just because I, a lowly Perl hacker, says to.

My intent here was to say the things I felt needed to be said about Perl's future. As a Perl programmer of many years, one with work up on CPAN, one who's contributed to other people's work on CPAN, one who's helped people here and elswhere, I feel I'm entitled to be critical of Perl and its community (of which I'm a member).

Only the depth of your whiny martyr complex surpasses your unbound self-described courage.

I posted something controversial here once, and guess what happened? Some asshole downvoted everything I posted in the thread, then went and downvoted--over the course of several days--all of my past writeups, some of which fell below the depth most people view at. These were helpful posts (answers to SoPW questions, mostly), but that didn't matter to this person. That's why I'm posting this anonymously. Try ruffling some feathers here and see for yourself how petty some Perl Monks can be.

My intent here was to say the things I felt needed to be said about Perl's future.

Through overgeneralizations, argument by authority, argument by repeated assertion, and ad hominem attacks? That does no one any good.

Wrong. The universe did not begin in 1994. Right. And how many people used Perl before 1994?

I know I did. My earliest published code is a delayed qmail notifier (no longer supported) from 1997, and I know I was using perl long before that time. In fact, IIRC, I wrote some game theory processing for a checkers game (studying AB pruning) in 1993 or 1994. I went through the Perl4 / Perl5 conversion.

--MidLifeXis

all of my past writeups, some of which fell below the depth most people view at.

You must be confusing PerlMonks with some other site (slashdot or use.perl?) because PerlMonks has no "don't show me nodes with a reputation below X" feature like some sites do. So the only "damage" was to your XP or to the reputation shown on the node to those who voted on it, neither of which is likely to change how helpful a node is.

You must not have been around at Perlmonks for very long. Threads are cut off at a certain depth; I think three is the default. That is, by default, a Re^3 will show up in full, but Re^4 and deeper need to be clicked to read them. It doesn’t have anything to do with noderep.

Makeshifts last the longest.

Quoth chromatic: Only the depth of your whiny martyr complex surpasses your unbound self-described courage.

That's why I'm posting this anonymously. Try ruffling some feathers here and see for yourself how petty some Perl Monks can be.

Ignore chromatic. He's prone to this kind of name calling, and then moments later he'll be lambasting you for "ad hominem" attack.

Don't worry about him. Those of us who are experienced with Perl can see it's flaws; and those of us who remember Topaz or the perl compiler projects will can see that Perl 6 will be no more sucessful than those embarassing chunks of perpetual vapourware...

Yeah, exactly, Pugs is a complete failure.

Makeshifts last the longest.