Please calm down, folks. Apache::DBI is a module that was designed to help with porting legacy CGI applications to mod_perl. It's a valid criticism to say that the action-at-a-distance parts of it are undesirable in new mod_perl applications. Personally, I have used mostly custom caching code instead for years.
Over time, Apache::DBI picked up some other features which are useful in mod_perl. If you're using something else, you should make sure you have these or know why you don't need them. - Startup safety. This prevents sharing of connections opened in the parent process during startup. Apache::DBI does this by not caching connections during startup. DBIx::Class does this by making a new connection if you fork or start a new thread. Note the stuff about InactiveDestroy in the DBI docs if you use DBIx::Class or DBIx::Connector. - Automatic rollback. Apache::DBI issues a rollback at the end of every request where the DBI connection was not opened in AutoCommit mode. This is to prevent a die() during a transaction from leaving your database in a bad state. If you use subroutine blocks wrapped in eval (e.g. the transaction stuff in DBIx::Connector), this should not be necessary, but make sure you ALWAYS do it that way if you're counting on that to protect you. I agree that trashing Apache::DBI is not very useful, but you should also know what Apache::DBI was meant for and what it's limitations are. - Perrin
