CONTENTS I. THE PAST II. THE PRESENT III. THE FUTURE IV. THE CODE V. THE AUTHOR
I. THE PAST Three yars ago we (http://www.webzavod.ru/ -- sorry, russian version only) moved from Win+IIS to Linux+Apche and rewrote our projects. But our quest for the best wasn't stopped. The general idea was to find the way to separate HTML and Perl, because programming and design teams must work with project files together. The second step in the mod_perl world was to create some projects based on Apache::Registry+Template-Toolkit. This scheme solved the problem of collaborating programmers and designers but we still needed more simplicity and flexibility -- to create new projects based on the previous ones (I think this is the main webmaster|webdesigner|webprogrammer's task). At the same time we tried to use AxKit (with XPathScript transformations) with no success because it was on the very early development stage. Then there were Apache::Dispatch, our own module based on it and other related options. But it was hard to extract the base, and each project started with simple templates and code copying. We use simple-power apache config, so we need to copy virtual host config (including rewrite rules too). II. THE PRESENT There is many template-driven site engines. Each of them have different templates syntax and configuration parameters. But they are writtn on Perl and why you should learn another 'language' additional to Perl? There is many techniques to create dynamic and semi-dynamic sites. Some of them are good (SSI for simple static sites, Apache::Registry -- easy step from CGI to mod_perl), some are best (Apache handler for it's performance). So there must be a compromise between ease of use and performance. Easy to use, easy to create dynamic site, and more important -- easy to support it. So even a mod_perl-novice would create a good site without learning new (of course except Perl itself, and Template-Toolkit) programming and markup language. We develope the Module that will be capable of: * use simple interface for dynamic site creating (and dynamic parts for any almost static site); * use simple urls with no query strings at all; * use smart templates (standard header and footer, for example). That very early beta works on: * http://www.neftechimia.ru/en/ -- business site * http://review.samara.ru/ -- newspaper site Note that the module is filter-aware and on "Neftechimia" there is AxKit postprocessing (that slowers down overall request performance six(!!!) times (I think this may be changed with new AxKit's Provider) but simplifies site supporting for non-professional webmaster -- all templates may be changed through the web-interface) III. THE FUTURE Though we need some advices: * is there any need for such thing? * if so, which name we should choose (it's Apache::Site for now)? * what features must it also have? * what do you think about it? IV. THE CODE As I said above it is very early beta. No POD, Comments only. * http://www.webzavod.ru/software/Apache-Site-0.36.tar.gz V. THE AUTHOR Gregory "Grishace" [gree-shah-s] Belenky WebZavod (http://www.webzavod.ru/) programmer
