I'm very new to Perl programming but have a long track record with other MVC frameworks for web development (java/spring/struts/grails, RoR, python/django, little-bit-o ASPX/.NET). I started using Catalyst a few months back, and I have been quite pleased.

Your specific question regarding easily portable to different web servers, I don't think it is quite as turn key as some frameworks (the java-based in particular) but better than others (certainly easier than .NET). If your server supports mod_per, FastCGI or whatever, assuming you can have access to or can install the same perl modules there shouldn't be any issues.

Client side programming is template based, and I agree that designers don't need to know Perl, but Template Toolkit seems to be the most common template system used with Catalyst, and it seems that a few Perl-ish things come up when using TT.

A lot less stuff is abstracted away from client-side technologies (HTML, JavaScript) when compared to other frameworks, but I have found this refreshing. There doesn't seem to be much saved in the long run when you do abstract away these things. I spent some time learning Google's GWT which essentially let's you program JavaScript in java, but it's still JavaScript, and it's easy enough to do everything in JavaScript. It just feels more warm/fuzzy when you spend most of your time thinking in one language.

The thing that I'm the most impressed with regarding Catalyst and Perl is the ability to drop in different techniques or modules that best suit your needs. You've got a solid framework that is truly just that (a framework), but then you have the entire CPAN at your disposal. Every other framework I've used tends to expect you to do it (mostly) their way.

In reply to Re: Using Catalyst by tswall
in thread Using Catalyst by vit

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