> > GUI builders usually don't work for anything but the > > most trivial websites that could be written in anything > > and do fine. > > consider struts, a popular java mvc framework. it defines > simple interfaces for things like actions and forms. does > struts (and mvc in general) work for non trivial websites?
Struts is a framework, not a GUI builder. I'm all for frameworks, and we have stuff on CPAN that duplicates all the significant parts of Struts. > a struts-oriented rad tool could easily scan WEB-INF dirs to > find action and form classes and represent them in the gui. > the main purpose of the tool would be to assemble and > configure those classes in order to generate a > struts-config.xml file. it could also incorporate ide > functionality. Such a tool does exist for Struts, but all it does is generate/edit the config file. Too me, this doesn't seem very labor-saving (typing in a Swing app vs. typing in my text editor), but it might generate more interest among certain groups. Adding some mod_perl oriented stuff to whatever the leading Apache GUI is these days could be a good start. > > People seem to come to mod_perl because they need more > > performance or more control than they can get from CGI. > > I'm not sure I want to try and draw in users who can't > > program at all. > > why do you think this tool would appeal to people who can't > program at all? Because your post made it sound like you were talking about drag-and-drop wizard-driven GUI builders with pre-written components (which is what Kylix is trying to be, if I understand it correctly). There is a need for tools to generate instant database editing apps, and some projects to build those tools exist now. Beyond that, I think most users know enough Perl to write actual code in a good editor. There are already commercial Perl IDEs (aimed at CGI mostly) that have some code generation support and a set of pre-built components. Maybe looking at those would help to gauge developer demand for this kind of thing. - Perrin
