Web Development Options

cgraf has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm an immediate perl hacker, but I'm a newbie at web development.

There appears to be many options when it comes to developing a dynmaic web site in perl (using MySQL, sessions etc.).

I'm looking for a solution that is popular and easily hosted by hosting service provider. Here is a list of my considerations so far:

* Apache::ASP - has all the features that I need, but does not appear to be popular.

* CGI - is this now old-school?

* Template Toolkit - is this appropriate for small sites? Sessions would need to be hand-rolled / or use Apache::Sessions etc.

* Mason - same comments as Template Toolkit.

Any feedback on a recommended approach would be appreciated. I'm generally looking for a rapid solution to a small site, but would also willing to commit to soemthing that would valuable in the longer term for larger sites. Chris.

Comment on Web Development Options

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Re: Web Development Options by tachyon (Chancellor) on Aug 23, 2004 at 11:07 UTC
As you note there are a number of options, and much has been written on the pros and cons of them all. Have a look at the Tutorials section on CGIs, where you will find some very good intro articles. I suggest you could do a lot worse than using CGI::Application and HTML::Template. Here is a brief overview of using CGI::Application on perl.com. cheers tachyon	[reply]
Re^2: Web Development Options by markjugg (Curate) on Aug 23, 2004 at 14:49 UTC
I'm a professional web site developer, and I've been using and enjoying using CGI::Application with HTML::Template for years. I also co-own Summersault, which provides hosting, and not surprisingly already has current versions of these modules installed. I have also found that the CGI::Application mailing list has a high signal to noise ratio, and somewhat often wanders to discussions about "best practices" for web development in the paradigm. There are actually not many questions about how to use CGI::Application, I assume because it's fairly easy to use. disclaimer: I help maintain CGI::Application. Mark Stosberg	[reply]
Re: Web Development Options by Arunbear (Prior) on Aug 23, 2004 at 11:17 UTC
CGI::Application + Template Toolkit or HTML::Template is a popular and easily hosted solution; it will also be your friend when you need to build larger sites.	[reply]
Re: Web Development Options by bradcathey (Prior) on Aug 23, 2004 at 11:30 UTC
cgraf, you will find several camps in the dynamic development arena, roughly divided up into ASP, JSP, PHP, ColdFusion, and of course, the reason we are all here, Perl and its various modules. I have chosen Perl. Personally, I rolled my own dynamic "engine" with the help of CGI, MySQL, HTML::Template, and WysiwygPro for a client-side editor. My experience here has piqued my interest in other helpful modules such as CGI::Lite, CGI::Application, CGI::Session, which I now realize would have made my task easier and a little less "old school." This is a big topic around the Monastery and a few Super Searchs should turn up lots (kiat has a lot of good posts on the subject—I might even have a few.) —Brad "Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up." G. K. Chesterton	[reply]
Re: Web Development Options by htoug (Deacon) on Aug 23, 2004 at 11:46 UTC
Apache::ASP - has all the features that I need, but does not appear to be popular. There is not much talk about it - true. Maybe thats because it "just works". It does for us at least - a medium sized application with about 200 "pages" and approx 5000 daily visitors. YMMV.	[reply]
Re: Web Development Options by bm (Hermit) on Aug 23, 2004 at 13:29 UTC
You can find some good analysis of templating systems within the mod_perl documentation. -- bm	[reply]
Re: Web Development Options by daveinthesky (Beadle) on Aug 23, 2004 at 17:32 UTC
Well, I noticed no one mentioned Mason, one of my favs, so I thought I'd bring it up (though the poster already mentioned it). If you haven't looked at it, the mason book is a great place to start poking around. A lot of the common things you'll need, like sessions, can also be handled very easily through something like MasonX::Request::WithApacheSession It's a shame there isn't a Mason Cookbook. Maybe I should write it. David	[reply]
Re: Web Development Options by tomhukins (Curate) on Aug 23, 2004 at 15:40 UTC
Nobody has mentioned Maypole yet, which has become very popular lately. It pulls together Class::DBI and Template::Toolkit, allowing you to create Web sites with minimal code. O'Reilly have published a couple of articles about Rapid Web Application Deployment with Maypole and IBM developerWorks have published Build Web apps with Maypole.	[reply]
Re: Web Development Options by Etcetera (Novice) on Aug 24, 2004 at 02:54 UTC
I basically rolled my own as well, using Template Toolkit and SpeedyCGI. Although it has some similarity to CGI::Application (which I actually only discovered very recently), it was tailored for my specific needs. I'm in the process of re-writing it as a well-behaved module in preparation for releasing it on CPAN, but the current code is available here.	[reply]