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Review of CGI::Alternativesby Anonymous Monk |
on Jun 09, 2018 at 15:44 UTC ( [id://1216248]=perlmeditation: print w/replies, xml ) | Need Help?? |
CGI::Alternatives is a module that "doesn't do anything"1 except
vehemently deny and propogandize against the utility of one of the most useful
forms of programming EVER conceived: CGI2 programming.
CGI::Alternatives perpetuates all the common fallicies against CGI that if heeded only disempower independent developers. This includes advocating the replacement of all of Perl's wonderful and extremely simple, stable, mature, powerful CGI modules with vastly more byzantine "frameworks"1 which rigidly enforce all sorts of corporate nonsense like "full separation of concerns"1, total object-oriented lack of any possible function-ality, and the absurd complication of allowing oneself to be used by something as annoyingly totalitarian as templates1 EVEN when they're not appropriate! All of these techniques have their place of course, mostly in big projects, with lots of tiny modules (to confuse management, ensure job stability, in competitive workplaces, stretching hours into months, for the children), but not usually in code written by us individuals for fun, prototyping, and extreme levels of pure: results.3 With all due respect to the author's efforts to change how we Perl into something his bosses find acceptable, the author of CGI::Alternatives is actually in charge of CGI.pm! How is this even possible? I realize the author is a talented programmer who has contributed significantly to CPAN, but this quote directly reflects his inappropriate state of mind towards the CGI paradigm (while CGI.pm is derided with that weird novelty-obsessed bigotry for being "old", as he removes perfectly sensible functions, only to prove his pointless point): "You can't just hand a template to the web-designers and allow them to work their magic. Don't mix the business logic and the presentation layer. Just don't." This guy doesn't even know what a CGI programmer does yet he dictates to us? This is CRAZY! We ARE the web-designers, OF the business logic, AND the presentation layer--ALL mixed together--like a SWISS ARMY CHAINSAW: this is our TECHINQUE! THIS IS Perl! Something YOU (Lee) obviously don't understand. Mixing it all up is exactly how some other language(s) seized the web from Perl (along with plenty of well-funded corporate FUD). Even though we still do it far better. We have been here from the beginning and we remain no matter how many of our tools you try to disable or how much FUD you spread about our primordially awesome technique of producing ONE UNIFIED FILE, USING CORE MODULES, QUITE OFTEN VASTLY SUPERIOR TO FRAGMENTED TEMPLATES, WRITTEN BY ONE PERL GENIUS, RATHER THAN A TEAM OF HOPELESSLY ABSTRACTED CORPORATE DRONES: Because Larry wrote and maintains Perl that way; Blessed be. How dare you tell us to stop doing what we love and what Perl empowers us to do? How dare you remove the HTML generation functions from CGI.pm? Who do you think you are anyway? People who come to Perl and say things have got to change don't appreciate Perl and should be led as far away from Perl as possible (Python), not in charge of (formerly, unfortunately) core modules! Can someone who cares please take CGI.pm away from Lee Johnson (LEEJO)? I would feel far more comfortable with someone we can trust, like ikegami or Merlyn3, in charge of maintaining CGI.pm. At least we know they would give us what we want and need, and more, rather than inflicting torture by removing legacy functionality FOR EMOTIONAL REASONS thereby violating operational stability. News for you Lee: What worked 20 years ago still works today: UNIX, POSIX, BASH, PERL, ME, AND MAYBE EVEN YOU. Mature technology never stops working! I appreciate innovation so don't necessarily stop trying to reinvent the wheel, but please do stop trying to shove your shiny new wheels in sheep's clothing down our throats because PERL ALREADY WON.4 If we stopped wasting time and spirit listening to ideologically driven flame warrior infiltrators who keep trying to change Perl we would already have a perfectly backward compatible and "fixed" (even though it has never failed me to this very day thank you Lincoln Stein5) CGI.pm on the corelist joined by other bits we desperately need and use EVERY SINGLE DAY like CGI::Carp, Data::Dumper and File::Slurp. Some examples: This extremely useful one-line CGI dubugger is now broken thanks to LEEJO (thanks!):
This is never ever going away:
CGI.pm now reduces efficiency by 100%!:
If you agree PLEASE respond! If you do NOT agree please DO NOT hijack the thread because you guys already kinda won and I hope this thread can be for CGI programmers to chime in and support this seemingly lost cause which is really not even close to lost in the real non-ideological world of actual programmers who GET STUFF DONE. Footnotes: 1. CGI::Alternatives 2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface 3. www.stonehenge.com/writing.html 4. programming.tudorconstantin.com/2015/01/perl-already-won.html 5. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Stein
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