Hi John -- > Quasi-seriously, as someone who has had to maintain mountains of bad > perl code, I know TMTOWTDI can have a downside; but the openness of the > language is what has lead to its greatness ...
This doesn't have to be as big a problem as it often is. Having coding standards makes a big difference no matter WHICH language you use. Have you ever seen bad Java code? Java has reached parity with Perl in that area, for sure! This is a problem in ANY language. You just can't "hire smart people" and send them out there without direction. At my company we base all our work on CGI::Application and HTML::Template to solve exactly this problem. CGI-App and HTML-Tmpl (or Template Toolkit -- TT is compatible with C::A) "strongly suggest" a standard way of writing the uninteresting bits of a web application -- namely, state management and HTML separation. They go beyond what is provided by simply making a decision to use a particular API, such as CGI, mod_perl, PHP, Mason, etc. No software library will factor this problem out entirely. This is really a human problem -- not a software problem. However, choosing a specific tactic is a good start. TTYL, -Jesse- -- Jesse Erlbaum The Erlbaum Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 212-684-6161 Fax: 212-684-6226
