Esteemed Monks,

Inspired by the "Perl Makes Easy Things Easy and Hard Things Possible" motto, Apache2::ASP is now available for Beta testing.

I wrote Apache2::ASP because I found myself doing too much scaffolding to produce the same set of features everytime I needed them. Things like database-persisted Session state, file uploads with a progress bar and server-generated thumbnail images used to take me hours (or more) to go from zero to finished. With Apache2::ASP I can be done within an hour or so.

There are some examples over at http://apache2-asp.no-ip.org/ so you can see it in action:

• Example 1: Upload with Progress Indicator and Thumbnailed Images
• Example 2: AJAX SpellChecker
• (more examples coming soon)

PROS

• Apache2::ASP is a 99.99% clean rewrite, intended only to run under mod_perl2.
• Apache2::ASP has relatively few dependancies compared to its Perl contemporaries.
• Apache2::ASP is 100% pure Perl and requires no extra compilation of XS modules.
• Apache2::ASP is object-oriented and subclassable (even more attention will be paid to this in the very near future).
• Apache2::ASP offers a 100% ASP environment (Perl embedded within HTML) as well as a closer-to-the-metal environment (Just Perl) which is very similar to ASP.Net's *.ashx Generic Handlers.
• Apache2::ASP persists Session and Application state in an SQL database. This feature enables development of Apache2::ASP websites that span multiple servers and supports load-balancing without requiring session-affinity.
• The simple codebase makes this a candidate for Perl6 conversion when the Time is Right.

CONS

• Although Apache2::ASP is 100% Perl, it does require Apache2.x and mod_perl2.x as well as Apache2::Request.
• The test suite is built according to the instructions at http://perl.apache.org/docs/general/testing/testing.html - it won't run under CPAN.pm without some coaxing. Maybe this will be addressed by someone qualified?
• ASP scripts written for Apache::ASP may require some minor tweaking before they will run under Apache2::ASP.

**ANOTHER** WEB FRAMEWORK?

I know, I know - web frameworks are to Perl as string libraries are to C. None of the existing web frameworks did quite what I wanted them to do.

Catalyst does much more than I want and is too verbose.

Anything that uses Template Toolkit is a turn-off for me because of TT's sub-language and I'm never quite sure if it will install or not (dependancies, dependancies, dependancies).

I'ved used Apache::ASP for years and finally could not handle forcing database-persisted Sessions onto it anymore.

QUESTIONS

• What would you like to see in Apache2::ASP?
• What other examples would you like to see on http://apache2-asp.no-ip.org?
• Which Favorite Features does your web framework of choice have that you just can't live without?

Best Regards,
John Drago

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