Re: [OT] About XML and Petal (was Re: templating system opinions(axkit?))
On Mon, 28 Jul 2003, Aleksandr Guidrevitch wrote: May be I'm a bit late here... But is there any sence in artifical XML templating languages since there is XSLT ? Just wonder whether there are cons other than long learning curve and performance issues ? Well, in the case of just TAL/Petal, the point as far as I know isn't so much that it happens to be valid XML -- though of course that's a welcome design aspect -- but that it's easy to use in W3C compliant HTML without masking the interesting bits inside HTML comment blocks. I can't think of an example now (and apologize for only having had time to skim much of this long, spiralling thread so far), but I seem to remember that TAL's syntax allowed for these clever little inside out loop structures that, among other things, ensures that the unrolled version of the loop still has proper indentation etc. Unessential maybe, but a nice touch. I don't know nearly enough about XSLT to comment on it in depth, but my impression is that TAL generally derives from the same heritage as all the assorted Perl template languages, etc, rather than ...well I guess I don't really know where XSLT derives from (Docbook?), but it seems more like CSS: a separate document describing how to display one or more other structured documents. The difference in the case of TAL / TT / H::T / Mason / etc is that the template is used to provide that structure itself, assembling it out of code that is maybe extracting content from a database or calculating it on the fly something. My hunch is that the way to work XSLT into the mix -- if it has a place at all -- is to have your logic (scripts with H::T, code sprinkled in Mason templates, TT applied where clever TT people apply it) fleshing out the framework defined in a template (the H::T template, the non-code part of a Mason template, the plaintext part of a TT template) as well formed XML, and then using XSLT to format that intermediate form for display. This probably makes sense in cases where that intermediate form can be cached (pages for web or print that change once a day, say), but for truly dynamic documents the XSLT stage is probably way too much overhead. Is XSLT appropriate for applying both structure styling to the free- form output of a [Perl] program? Does it take a lot of overhead? Would this overhead happen on the server end (glue XML + XSLT into an HTML document that goes out over the wire), or on the client end (download XML, then grab XSLT by reference (like HTML grabs CSS), and then the client merges them)? If the client does the work, how widespread is support? If the server does the work, what should the throughput be like? My hunch -- which I'd be happy to be corrected about -- is that this can't be any easier than just working directly from traditional template kits, as has been discussed at remarkable length in this thread :) -- Chris Devers[EMAIL PROTECTED]http://devers.homeip.net:8080/resume/ sorry for helping along in this thread 10 days dozens of messages ago :)
Re: templating system opinions
On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, Patrick Galbraith wrote: Just wondering what the best templating system is to use and/or learn. I've briefly read up on the pros and cons of each, and am just wondering which one is the most widely _used_ and best to learn if you're wanting to know something that there are jobs for. What's best depends on what your requirements are. As far as I can tell, the big ones are Template::Toolkit, Mason, and HTML::Template; each one makes different tradeoffs and makes different assumptions about the division of labor among programmers, web developers, content producers. TT is probably the most flexible, but that or might not be what you want. Honestly, of the three I just listed, none of them are *that* complicated. If you want to learn these for job hunting purposes -- in which case it's not really fair to ask you what the requirements are, since you can't really know that -- you might as well experiment with all three. A good way to start might be by playing with different content management etc platforms that use these toolkits. From what I've read, the biggest examples I can think of are: * Slashcode (TT based, runs slashdot.org) * Bricolage (H::T, http://www.bricolage.cc/docs/Bric/HTMLTemplate.html, CMS used by theregister.co.uk et al) * Request Tracker (excellent ticketing system, runs http://rt.cpan.org/, home page is http://www.bestpractical.com/rt) Any of these can be downloaded used freely. If you have the time for it, grab a copy of one or more and start playing around. Have fun :) -- Chris Devers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://devers.homeip.net:8080/ drag'n'drop, v. To throw away your mouse after the first attempt to copy a file leads to its deletion. See also TRASH CAN. -- from _The Computer Contradictionary_, Stan Kelly-Bootle, 1995
Re: templating system opinions - Mason recommendation
Sorry to cc: this to the list, but I stand corrected and might as well mention that to the list :) On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, Dave Baker wrote: Correction: Bricolage is written in Mason, I believe. That's what the Bricolage authors say at http://bricolage.cc/ Hmm, so it does. I wonder where I got the idea that it was H::T based... I'm very pleased with Mason -- the online O'Reilly book about Mason is at http://www.masonbook.com/book/ A little bird tells me that TT is about to get an O'Reilly book as well, though it's not on their upcoming titles page (yet). The only H::T dead-trees material that I know of is a section in _CGI Programming with Perl_, 2nd edition -- that's where I learned it. I like the simplicity of H::T, but most other people seem to prefer TT or Mason. I still think it comes down to whichever system meets your needs the best, and in different contexts any of them (or others) could be appropriate. This may have been covered before here, but Zope supports an interesting template mechanism called TAL, where everything is done by attributes for the HTML tags, rather than special logical tags as most other systems use (e.g. the ones mentioned above, SSI, PHP, ASP, JSP, etc). This has the nice side effect of guaranteeing that all your html templates are always valid, and so can be used in any html IDE without complication. So for example, picking a random sample from the spec: Repeat Syntax: argument ::= variable_name expression variable_name ::= Name When you want to replicate a subtree of your document once for each item in a sequence, you use repeat. The expression should evaluate to a sequence. If the sequence is empty, then the statement element is deleted, otherwise it is repeated for each value in the sequence. If the action is cancelled, then the element is left unchanged, and no new variables are defined. The variable_name is used to define a local variable and a repeat variable. For each repetition, the local variable is set to the current sequence element, and the repeat variable is set to an iteration object. You use iteration objects to access information about the current repetition (such as the repeat index). (Iteration objects are more properly the domain of TALES.) The repeat variable has the same name as the local variable, but is only accessible through the builtin variable named repeat (see RepeatVariable). Examples: p tal:repeat=txt python:'one', 'two', 'three' span tal:replace=txt / /p table tr tal:repeat=item here/cart td tal:content=repeat/item/index1/td td tal:content=item/descriptionWidget/td td tal:content=item/price$1.50/td /tr /table It's a pretty clever approach; I'd like to see something like this done with a Perl backend (I haven't really been keeping track of development, for all I know there already is a Perl backend...). Read more: http://www.zope.org/Wikis/DevSite/Projects/ZPT/TAL http://www.zope.org/Wikis/DevSite/Projects/ZPT/TAL%20Specification%201.4 But anyway, Zope isn't mod_perl, so that's probably not what the original person was hoping to read about... :) -- Chris Devers[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: templating system opinions
On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, Patrick Galbraith wrote: Yeah, I worked with TT when I was on the Slash team ;) Then why are you asking a question like this?? :) -- Chris Devers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://devers.homeip.net:8080/ Turing machine, n. [After Alan M. Turing (1912-1954), British mathematician and computer pioneer.] The earliest but still the fastest and most reliable computing system ever conceived. Dis maschine vill run und run (K. Godel). -- from _The Computer Contradictionary_, Stan Kelly-Bootle, 1995
Re: --help
On Wed, 9 Jul 2003, Alexander Prihodko wrote: --help Usage: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [-s topic] PROBLEM [DETAILS] Describe a PROBLEM, giving DETAILS, so that the members of the list can try to assist you. Example: Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 + From: D Ritchie [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: won't build on new lab system Your ^*$*$ software won't compile on this PDP-11. I keep getting the error cowardly refusing to create an empty archive. What is *that* supposed to mean? Here's the full error dump: snipped And here's the software hardware I'm running: snipped Options: -p --post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -S --subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] -u --unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] -h --help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please, try again :) -- Chris Devers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://devers.homeip.net:8080/ reusability, n. A marketing priority overriding that of usability. See also OBJECT ORIENTEETING. -- from _The Computer Contradictionary_, Stan Kelly-Bootle, 1995
Re: errors installing libapreq [RESOLVED]
Well, I rebuilt Apache/mod_perl, and it seemed to work. For those that
hit the same error, the fix -- which I've saved as a script for future
reference :) -- is as follows:
* Install Apache/mod_perl:
#!/bin/sh
# chd.build.apachemodperl.sh
perl=/sw/bin/perl
modperldir=/usr/src/mod_perl-1.27
apachedir=/usr/src/apache_1.3.27
builddir=/usr/local/apache
pushd $modperldir
$perl Makefile.PL \
APACHE_SRC=../apache_1.3.xx/src \
APACHE_PREFIX=${builddir} \
APACHE_USER=www \
APACHE_GROUP=www \
DO_HTTPD=1 \
USE_APACI=1 \
EVERYTHING=1 \
APACI_ARGS='--sbindir=${builddir}/sbin, \
--sysconfdir=${builddir}/etc, \
--localstatedir=${builddir}/var, \
--runtimedir=${builddir}/var/run, \
--logfiledir=${builddir}/var/logs, \
--proxycachedir=${builddir}/var/proxy, \
--enable-module=so'
make
make test
sudo make install
pushd $apachedir
sudo make install
echo Verifying that the build worked:
${builddir}/sbin/apachectl configtest \
echo congratulations, you may now reset apache by running \
echo ${builddir}/sbin/apachectl start
* Installation may disrupt Perl modules. I had to rebuild Apache::Test
% sudo /sw/bin/perl -MCPAN -e shell
cpan install Apache::Test
* Install libapreq:
% perl Makefile.PL \
-httpd /usr/local/apache/sbin/httpd \
-apxs /usr/local/apache/sbin/apxs
% make
% make test
% make install
Everything went smoothly up to the `perl Makefile.PL [...]` step, where I
got this error:
skipping test setup...Undefined subroutine Apache::Test::config called at
/sw/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/darwin/Apache/TestMM.pm line 90.
Warning: prerequisite Apache::Test 1.03 not found. We have unknown version.
And, as I say, rebuilding Apache::Test in the CPAN shell took care of
that. Others may hit different problems that could be fixed similarly.
All better now :)
--
Chris Devers[EMAIL PROTECTED]
channeler, n.
Also SPIRIT GUIDE. Politically correct terms for DAEMON.
-- from _The Computer Contradictionary_, Stan Kelly-Bootle, 1995
Re: [VERY OT] What hourly rate to charge for programming?
On Thu, 11 Oct 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To: Gunther Birznieks [EMAIL PROTECTED], Still, the beer sucks in both ;-) That's because it's stale piss, I'm sure the beer glasses are pissed in to save money ;-) Heck, the beer is so bad nobody can possibly tell the difference anyway. Ahh, you have Budweiser in Australia too, then? ;) -- Chris Devers [EMAIL PROTECTED] Apache / mod_perl http://bunny.skillcheck.com/admin/chris/resume/
Re: FW: Apache_1.3.19/mod_perl-1.24_01/perl5.6.1 on Solaris 2.6/SunO S 5.6
On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, Ged Haywood wrote: Hi there, On Tue, 2 Oct 2001, Yeo Puay Hoon wrote: steps suggested in the apache readme file: # gunzip apache_1.3.19.tar.gz # tar -xvf apache_1.3.19.tar # gunzip mod_perl-1.24_01.tar.gz # tar -xvf mod_perl-1.24.01.tar # cd mod_perl-1.24_01 # perl Makefile.PL \ [snip] Don't install and compile as root, it can cause troubles. Only use the root account to make install. Better still, if your system is set up for it, do something like: $ tar -xvzf apache_1.3.19.tar.gz# the -z flag decompresses for you $ tar -xvzf mod_perl-1.24_01.tar.gz $ cd mod_perl-1.24_01 $ perl Makefile.PL make make test sudo make install # if each step is successful, it succeeds automagically, # otherwise it fails. also more importantly, it wraps # 'make install' in a sudo call, so the work gets logged # and you only get to do that one command as root. if # your system supports it, sudo is often safer than su. -- Chris Devers [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What hapened to AxKit.com?
On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, Perl Man wrote: At 02:42 PM 10/3/2001 -0700, you wrote: Does anyone have factual information about the AxKit website? Here's what I got after trying to join their email list: After 10 days (232 hours), your message could not be fully delivered. It failed to be received by the following address(es): [EMAIL PROTECTED] (host: sergeant.org) (queue: network) Problems usually are due to service interruptions at the receiving machine. Less often, they are caused by the communication system. Your message follows: I tried to get to sergeant.org today and it was inaccessible too. /yet another datapoint -- Chris Devers [EMAIL PROTECTED]
HTML::Template initialization bug (sorta)
I've just resolved a bug I was getting with parameter parsing, and was told that I should pass it along to the mod_perl list (which I'd been meaning to subscribe to anyway, so hey). I'd been having problems getting CGI.pm to properly parse out script parameters for various pages that had been working just fine before. Further investigation showed that a simple script with just a call to CGI.pm's Dump() method would return parameters that were clearly not part of the argument portion of the url, and it wasn't grabbing the ones that were there. Hitting reload would trigger more or less random results -- sometimes it would get the right parameters return the correct page contents, other times it would mangle the parameters but, generally, it would display an incorrect but valid page (i.e. ask for foo?p=bar and get back foo?p=blat). Turns out that a call to 'use HTML::Template' that I'd placed into my startup.pl script was causing all the errors. Commenting it out and restarting the server seems -- so far -- to have removed the problem. *and there was much rejoicing* So, if any of you are using H::T, be aware that it doesn't seem to like being called from your startup.pl scripts. If you're getting weird, semi random errors across more or less your whole site, this or something like it could be to blame. *yech* So anyway, yeah. I don't usually join a list post straight off, so... goes into lurk mode / -- Chris Devers [EMAIL PROTECTED]
