Which that is a somewhat wishy-washy title, I am fishy-fishying for opinions ;)

I've only been programming for a few years; I actually got interested via perl on linux and for the past year have been mostly studying C, but still have an attachment to my first love :)

Motivated by a need to maintain small websites for some C projects I've gotten involved with, I've also been picking up javascript/DOM/AJAX. A while ago I wrote myself some little CGI and DB modules to help with CGI scripts that spit out javascript and (surprise!) deal with databases in a dynamic way. That led me to an awareness of "web application frameworks" and about a month ago I started with ruby & ruby on rails.

Via RonR I've learned the MVC model and about dealing with SQL (my 'lil perl CGI/DB modules just use Storable). Which is great, it all seems very clever to me, etc, etc. At this point, tho, I have decided to step back from ruby (which is nice) & RonR and assess my original motive, which was largely a desire to use HTML embedded perl the way I see PHP used. At that point (way back in April!), I was under the (probably misguided) impression that embedding perl in web pages was freakish and unusual, and that if I didn't want to go with PHP or ASP then RonR would be a more realistic option.

It is beginning to dawn on me that that is not really the case, so as part of my "stepping back and assessing" process I've decided to give Mason a whirl. I am still flabbergasted by the evident proliferation and "high-profile" of ruby on rails in contrast to the evidently near clandestine mason/catalyst/mod_perl realm. Or am I wrong?

SO, basically, the purpose of this post is to casually pick some brains of those who have some greater knowledge and experience of MVC style web programming with perl. I explicitly mention MVC because I do like the concept, however, a lot of the "web programming" I see myself doing is not really database centric, it simply may involve a database. Ruby on Rails is very strictly tied to MVC, and I do not think will lend itself itself well to small sites that may not require any DB at all, but could still benefit from the "embedded script" dynamic. Really, I would be happy to just write CGI type scripts that deal with html embedded perl, but recognize CGI itself is not *quite* sufficient for that. I don't at all mind having to do more coding in order to pay for something more flexible than RonR (if my point is clear here). Anyway, Mason, catalyst, embperl users, please commence opinionating!

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.