I've been using mason for a while now, and I am very happy with it's capabilities. Cool stuff like automatic interception and processing of 404s, argument handling, autohandles, sub-components, inheritable methods keeps me busy trying to figure out how best to utilize it all. The thing that I have found I love most of all, though is the snappy way Mason handles parameters.

A while back, I wanted to learn a templating system. Since I run a little intranet server, and I'm always on the lookout for useful applications I can install and put to use, I looked at what tools were available that I wanted to use, and what they were made with. Tools like Mason-CM, RT, Bricks and Bricolage are all implemented in Mason. We are currently using Mason-CM, customizing RT for use as a workflow tool, and are considering moving some of our documentation to Bricolage. There's some mighty cool stuff out there.

The one thing that mars my love-affair with Mason, is the difficulty I am having finding a cheap host for mason-stuff. To get mason to run in CGI mode, you still need to make changes to the apache config file, which may not be available. Many sites also use mod_perl compiled as a DSO instead of staticly compiled into Apache. There is a bug in mod_perl that Mason treads on hard and often. When used in this configuration Apache tends to seg-fault or die at startup. Not good. Several companies I have contacted were not willing to do a static compile of Apache/mod_perl. It's tempting to use one of them anyway and crash, crash, crash their servers until they repent. But I'm a nice guy.

I have been working with someone on the Mason-Users list to come up with a technique for using mason on a server where you have very minimal access (must install modules into your homedirectory, minimal .htaccess controls, and perl cgi only). I haven't heard from him in a while, so I'm not sure when it will be ready. When it is done, I will post it at masonhq.

TGI says moo