I'm a part time hobbyist coder, and the other day I realized I've spent two years already building my knowledge and Perl codebase toward the launch of a somewhat sophisticated database-backed website -- and I've still got a year or so to go.

I've come to love the perl components I'm using, including Class::DBI, Template Toolkit, Plucene and CGI::Prototype. I just migrated to an apache2/mod_perl2 installation from CGI and found it a surprisingly smooth transition. I don't regret spending two years learning about Perl and various modules, or the five years learning Perl prior to this project.

But today I began wondering if my wheel reinventing has gone beyond the educational stage and into the "wasting valuable time" stage. I began designing the data model for a needed feature -- Web content versioning inside the database -- and looked at how the (Open) ArsDigita Community System (history, what it is) does it, since that toolkit has been around for a while. Not only do they have a pretty sophisticated approach to this issue, platform developers have already solved a number of other problems I envision facing.

I have avoided ACS in the past because it is based on TCL and I already know Perl, and as a hobbyist my resume and skillset are NOT enhanced much at all by knowing more computer languages. As such it seemed a likely uphill fight to extend ACS. Also, it requires use of the AOLserver Web server, which does not have a mod_perl equivalent.

At this point, though, I am starting to think the time required to learn the neccesary TCL might be significantly less than the time needed to build what I need in Perl (and no one Perl package out there has it, although many are quite good in individual roles like CMS or simple CRUD).

This leaves one critical reservation: I have never worked with OpenACS and do not want to invest the time to learn the system IF it is going to be too hard or painful or inelegant to extend.

Thus my question: Have any fellow monks worked with OpenACS or ACS in the past?

Follow up questions: What was the experience like? Most critically, did you need to extend the system and what was THAT experience like? How was it working in TCL and did you feel held back not having CPAN at your fingertips?

Advice of all sort from all quarters welcome. Thanks for any help.

In reply to Perl vets on OpenACS? by ryantate

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