Re: Perl vets on OpenACS?

I know a little about ACS, but stopped using around the time OpenACS really got going. I can't say much about going from Perl to TCL, though, as I went the other way.

TCL syntax is a little odd and has one or two tricks up its sleeve, but really only one or two. It's a very easy language to learn, and much harder to get into trouble with than Perl. (So long as you have the good sense to avoid uplevel and upvar).

I think that the lack of CPAN will be greatly obviated by the fact that virtually all common functionality you might need to build a database-backed website is provided in one ACS package or another. Typically, the only place you will need to "extend" the system is for whatever it is that makes your site special and unique.

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Re^2: Perl vets on OpenACS?
by ryantate (Friar) on Jun 24, 2005 at 06:21 UTC

kscalef

I guess when I say "extend," that's a little vague. Let's say I want to start a community-driven site devoted to, using a common example, beer. In addition to articles and Q&As and comments and reviews and all the usual ACS content, I also want the database to hold information on the beers themselves, including brewery and type (porter, stout, ale, lager) and so forth. Then one could query beers on all sorts of different criteria, from location to type to the date it was first brewed.

I know how to do this in Perl using various modules, and I know the SQL that would be required for the DB stuff. I guess what I worry about is integrating such new "object" types with all the other services ACS provides, ranging from full text search to the comments and reviews.

Another example would be customizing the full text search results to sort by date, or to screen for certain terms ("home brew" automatically puts the home brewing howto and forum first, for example). I could do this in a snap with Plucene but ACS -- not sure how easy it'll be.

Anyway, thanks. At some point I guess I'll have to try this thing if I decide to stray a bit off the Perl path. It just seems like a very mature platform even though it's not Perl and Not Invented Here ;->

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