At 11:13 PM 10/16/01, Dominique Quatravaux wrote: > > also does modperl support object oriented programming? > > Well yes it does indeed (see any good book on Perl, such as >«advanced Perl programming» from O'Reilly). > > As for the remaining of the question, I've been wondering for myself if >there is a MVC (model-view-controller) framework for WWW publishing in >Perl ? I gather there exist quite a few for Java, but I couldn't find >anything significant under Perl.
Our eXtropia toolkit is just about the only one out there that caters to all CGI environments with MVC architecture (action objects and action manager for controller, normal DB objects for model, and template toolkit for view)... If you go to http://www.extropia.com/ you can download any Perl WebDB app, WebCal, or WebBBS to see an example. We are still in a mode where we are distributing apps built around the framework rather than the framework itself but you can get the idea. WebDB in particular has a lot of documentation itself for free. If you are really interested in toolkit docs, we have an 800 page book out by McGraw-Hill whose later half 400 pages discusses in raw detail the architecture of the toolkit itself and how all the pieces fit together. One of the sad things is that the intelligent people on this list tend to have their head a bit in the ground when it comes to alternative environments other than mod_perl. mod_perl's a great tool but there's a lot of other Perl environments out there not the least of which is just plain old CGI. This is why our toolkit specifically caters to all. The other thing is that many (although not all) Perl people tend to have their head in the ground related to dealing with other environments such as Java. Our toolkit also plugs into Java environments. For example, we have a completely interoperaple Perl <-> Java persistence layer (via SOAP) if you wish to use a Java driver for a Perl front-end. We also spent considerable time porting our toolkit and several apps to Java MVC framework so we have Java Servlet/JSP equivalents of everything. Yet another thing is that many Perl people also have their head in the ground about Win32 compatibility. We've strived to make sure our entire toolkit will work reasonably well on Win98 and Win2000. A toolkit that only works on mod_perl will by definition not work well on Win2000 except as a toy because Win32 mod_perl is a single blocking thread. Great for development, not so great for production (unless the site is really small). I would venture to say that some of the mod_perl-only toolkits have some cases of being better designed than ours, but they are mostly mod_perl only. In fact, I don't know if I know any other toolkits than ours that are not mod_perl only of the ones that were advertised on the list. Of course, this may be what you are looking for. But since you mentioned Perl MVC and not specifically mod_perl-only MVC, I figured I would jump in and mention the alternative since we are much more open to alternative environments and not being closed in to just mod_perl. Later, Gunther
