http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=577215

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

Hey monks,


Recently i've been working on perl discussion/CMS software, and was told by diotalevi that I was reinventing the wheel (the wheel being an MVC like Jifty, Catalyst, ROR, etc) with the idea and code that I had. I took diotalevi's advice, and tried BOTH Catalyst and Jifty. Catalyst seems to be working, as opposed to Jifty (winders doesn't seem to want to let Scalar::Util build and run properly, which in turn will not allow me to run the jifty server command properly); however, I can't run Catalyst on my host because the server it provides isn't allowed to run because of the firewall my host uses UPDATE: server provided is for development only :-). Jifty is a feasible alternative except for the fact that I can't get my application started because of those errors stated above.


I'm wondering, am I missing something with Jifty, or Catalyst, so much that I'm doing something wrong and the solution is right in front of my face? Or do I honestly need to look at going a different path? I don't have the money to upgrade to a dedicated host yet, so I need to find something that's not going to involve that kind of route.


Please, bathe me in your infinite wisdom, kind monks.


-dhoss

meh.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Catalyst, Jifty MVCs too "expensive"...feasible alternative?
by perrin (Chancellor) on Oct 09, 2006 at 16:33 UTC
    I think you could solve the problems you're having with Jifty and Catalyst pretty quickly if you join their mailing lists and ask for help. (And, as was already pointed out, there is no reason at all you need to run the test server provided by Catalyst. It's entirely optional and for dev only.)

    However, to address your larger question of whether there is something more lightweight, there are plenty of alternatives. If you already know how to call a templating tool and how to write data objects (with an ORM or not), all that's left is URL mapping and some error handling and glue code. You could write that from scratch and you wouldn't be reinventing anything very significant, provided your URL mapping needs are minimal.

    Or you could use a lightweight tool like CGI::Application, which has the glue code you're likely to need already but is still pretty quick to get going on. It's a very easy learning curve.

      Perhaps I'm in need of some more in depth MVC research, but what kind of URL mapping are you talking about?

      meh.
        Mapping URLs to methods in your class. Catalyst has a lot of funtionality for this, as you'll see if you browse the docs. Not sure about Jifty. CGI::Application has code for using either query strings (/catalog/product.cgi?rm=show) or a more REST-like approach (/catalog/product/show).
Re: Catalyst, Jifty MVCs too "expensive"...feasible alternative?
by chargrill (Parson) on Oct 09, 2006 at 16:16 UTC
    I can't run Catalyst on my host because the server it provides isn't allowed to run because of the firewall my host uses.

    Huh?

    I've heard (and experienced, a little) tales of woe from installing Catalyst, but not running it due to firewall issues(?).

    Though I've heard through the grapevine that folks like marcus and Matt Trout (among others) are making great strides in making Catalyst easier to get up and running.

    Oh. You mean the test server running on port 3000. That's only for testing purposes. You should use apache (and therefore port 80) once you're done with the development. And don't do the development on your production server. ;)



    --chargrill
    s**lil*; $*=join'',sort split q**; s;.*;grr; &&s+(.(.)).+$2$1+; $; = qq-$_-;s,.*,ahc,;$,.=chop for split q,,,reverse;print for($,,$;,$*,$/)

      Thanks chargrill. Looks like I got a little hasty while reading the docs.

      meh.
Re: Catalyst, Jifty MVCs too "expensive"...feasible alternative?
by grep (Monsignor) on Oct 09, 2006 at 17:20 UTC
    There is also Interchange. It is geared towards ecommerce, but it is fundementally a CMS. It's time tested, well supported with a very active community, though IMO it can be a little warty due to it's heritige (MiniVend).

    Interchange also has plenty of documentation about setting up in a shared enviroment. It also has more of a framework already setup, including a fully functional e-com starter program (don't worry it's quite easy to dump the e-com stuff if you don't need it). You could quite easily have functional site in an hour or you can start a site up from scratch. It has it's own custom templating system and an easy way to create custom tags.

    That being said, After many year with Interchange I am switching my main development focus to Catalyst.



    grep
    One dead unjugged rabbit fish later
Re: Catalyst, Jifty MVCs too "expensive"...feasible alternative?
by castaway (Parson) on Oct 10, 2006 at 08:42 UTC
    If you're having firewall problems when using the Catalyst test server, then just run it on another port, or open the default port in your firewall. The default is 3000, to change it, pass "--port NNNN" (with a new number) to the test server, simple. (And hopefully documented somewhere).

    As for the rest of your question, I can't actually determine what the question is? Are you missing something? Quite likely, since Catalyst is quite a complex system. If you need more help using it, theres quite a good Tutorial in the manual, or hop on to the mailing list or IRC channel (both mentioned in the POD), and talk to people.

    C.

    Catalyst and DBIx::Class developer

      Allegedly, I have a broken perl install (ActiveState). It's hinging on Scalar::Util, which seems to be broken. I'm getting a new box tomorrow, so hopefully I can start over with a clean perl install and start from there. Either of these could probably work...but like I said, only with a good perl install.

      meh.
Re: Catalyst, Jifty MVCs too "expensive"...feasible alternative?
by ghenry (Vicar) on Oct 10, 2006 at 11:01 UTC

    Like I say in all Catalyst post replies, please hit the mailing lists or #catalyst on irc.perl.org if you get stuck.

    All the experts are on there! ;-)

    Walking the road to enlightenment... I found a penguin and a camel on the way.....
    Fancy a yourname@perl.me.uk? Just ask!!!