Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
On Thu, 25 May 2000, Michael Nachbaur wrote: [...] This site will have major traffic, will need to be extended and changed (a lot), and needs to scale very well. My experience with Perl (as well as what I've heard from other developers) is that Perl turns to spaghetti rapidly once you hit the 10,000 line mark. I know Perl can handle the performance. What are your experiences with extendability and readability of code? That Perl works very well in those areas. The slightly longer story: At ValueClick we have far more than 1 lines of code (can't find an easy way to make a count right now, but I think it's about 5, highly reused and moduarlized and what have you not). Our site served about 100 million dynamic impressions yesterday, mod_perl in the front end and all our backend applications are in Perl too. Bad programmers will screw up code in any languge. The "problem" for Perl is just that it takes a lot less to get productive and useful, which puts more less experienced people to the code. At ValueClick we're getting pretty far with having our version control system sending mail to everyone on the team with the diff everytime someone commits. That way no change goes unnoticed and it makes it easy for the more experienced to catch mistakes and give advice to the less experienced. But this topic goes far beyond the scope of this mailinglist. :) To not end up with a mess of a code pile and development process, your usual deal of good practices and methods applies for any language, including Perl. Favorite books on the topic includes the mythical man month http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201835959/asksplayground and "Rapid Development - Taming Wild Software Schedules" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1556159005/asksplayground (yup, it's a MicroSoft product, but it's truly recommended). - ask -- ask bjoern hansen - http://www.netcetera.dk/~ask/ more than 70M impressions per day, http://valueclick.com
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
On Thu, 25 May 2000, Jason Bodnar wrote: Definitely read the perltoot (Tom's OO Tutorial). I've heard alot of good things about Damian Conway's OO Perl book but I haven't read it myself. Damian's book is the book to end all perl books in my opinion - I wouldn't dream of hiring anyone who hasn't read it yet. -- Matt/ Fastnet Software Ltd. High Performance Web Specialists Providing mod_perl, XML, Sybase and Oracle solutions Email for training and consultancy availability. http://sergeant.org http://xml.sergeant.org
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
Jason Bodnar [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Definitely read the perltoot (Tom's OO Tutorial). I've heard alot of good things about Damian Conway's OO Perl book but I haven't read it myself. The advanced perl programming book has a nice section on OO. But, learning OO in a Java or C++ context would probably be the best way to start. The Conway book is excellent. I've made several runs at C++ and Java at various times but I've never been involved in OO development that went beyond the the "toy" stage. This book taught me as much about how perl works as how to apply it to OO. That said, I've used the Conway book as the bible for my latest development and in terms of all the OO Good Things the book offered good examples and good code templates. Recommended. -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
Jason Bodnar wrote: Probably the best way to learn good OO Perl is to learn Java or C++. As Gunther said, other languages are much more strict so they force you to write good OO stuff. I had been programming with Perl 4 before Java came out and had never done any OO stuff. I actually argued against OO with a friend. I tried to learn Perl OO but it didn't click. I taught myself Java since it was the cool thing to do and then went back to Perl OO. I think my Perl OO is better from knowing Java first. That is an interesting observation, but it makes perfect sense. I've been reading a bit here and there about Java, so I guess this is one more reason to finish "Thinking in Java". Definitely read the perltoot (Tom's OO Tutorial). I've heard alot of good things about Damian Conway's OO Perl book but I haven't read it myself. The advanced perl programming book has a nice section on OO. But, learning OO in a Java or C++ context would probably be the best way to start. I'll third Damian's book. It is clear, concise, and VERY informative. It has helped me (with no formal programming background) tremendously in learning OO Perl and OO in general. A Must Read IMHO. -- Drew Taylor Vialogix Communications, Inc. 501 N. College Street Charlotte, NC 28202 704 370 0550 http://www.vialogix.com/
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
"Jason" == Jason Bodnar [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Jason Definitely read the perltoot (Tom's OO Tutorial). And don't forget "perlboot" in the 5.6 distribution, aimed more at the "I know some Perl but nothing about OO crowd". The approach I took in perlboot is the one that Damian would have taken had he seen it six months earlier, so he says. :) -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/ Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
"Jason" == Jason Bodnar [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Jason Probably the best way to learn good OO Perl is to learn Java or C++. No. Gawd no. Java and C++ are "hybrid" OO languages, with some "real" objects and some "primitive" non-objects. You learn evil habits that way. (Of course, Perl is also a hybrid OO language, which occasionally upsets me, but not as much now that we have decent tie interfaces.) To learn OO, go to the granddaddy, Smalltalk. Get a free smalltalk for nearly every platform at www.squeak.org. *Everything* is an object, and open source and in a great IDE (essentially unchanged from 1980!!), and there's a big pile of literature of basic smalltalk intros both on the net and off. I've heard another good one is Eiffel, but I can't vouch for that personally. Or, I hesitate to say this here, but it's accurate: try Python. Decent object model... just an overly verbose syntax and that horrific "you must indent your code the way Guido wanted or Guido will make a visit to your house" indenting style. -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/ Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
At 09:50 AM 5/26/00 -0400, Drew Taylor wrote: Jason Bodnar wrote: Probably the best way to learn good OO Perl is to learn Java or C++. As Gunther said, other languages are much more strict so they force you to write good OO stuff. I had been programming with Perl 4 before Java came out and had never done any OO stuff. I actually argued against OO with a friend. I tried to learn Perl OO but it didn't click. I taught myself Java since it was the cool thing to do and then went back to Perl OO. I think my Perl OO is better from knowing Java first. That is an interesting observation, but it makes perfect sense. I've been reading a bit here and there about Java, so I guess this is one more reason to finish "Thinking in Java". I would agree that Bruce's book (Thinking in Java) is excellent as it was developed as an open source text incorporating and evolving over a year of comments before being published. Definitely read the perltoot (Tom's OO Tutorial). I've heard alot of good things about Damian Conway's OO Perl book but I haven't read it myself. The advanced perl programming book has a nice section on OO. But, learning OO in a Java or C++ context would probably be the best way to start. I'll third Damian's book. It is clear, concise, and VERY informative. It has helped me (with no formal programming background) tremendously in learning OO Perl and OO in general. A Must Read IMHO. Wasn't going to respond, but I figured I would 2nd the Java one... So I guess I 4th the Damien Conway book as well. Later, Gunther __ Gunther Birznieks ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Extropia - The Web Technology Company http://www.extropia.com/
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
Well forcing you to write objects does not mean you know how to write good objects. With that said here is my very small cookbook: 1: know your tools, what they can and cannot do AND what they should and should not do. 2: when you get the problem try to understand it before you start the design 3: design before you code 4: code it the way you would want it done if you were getting someone else's code to fix 5: version control aka CVS 6: write code, write lots of code and get some peer review if possible 7: review your own code Most of the bad code I have seen and written is caused by a lack of self discipline on the part of the team( 1 or 100 people). Cutting corners always costs you time or if you do it right you do it once. Good luck marc - Original Message - From: Jason Bodnar [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Neil Conway [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2000 11:28 PM Subject: Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites? I'm probably a novice programmer, at least by the standards of most of the people on this list. I'm 16, and since I haven't taken Computer Science at university yet, I'm a bit lacking in 'formal programming education'. I'd rather not form bad habits - is there any advice anyone can give me on how to write, clean Perl (OO or otherwise)? Are there any good books I can pick up? Probably the best way to learn good OO Perl is to learn Java or C++. As Gunther said, other languages are much more strict so they force you to write good OO stuff. I had been programming with Perl 4 before Java came out and had never done any OO stuff. I actually argued against OO with a friend. I tried to learn Perl OO but it didn't click. I taught myself Java since it was the cool thing to do and then went back to Perl OO. I think my Perl OO is better from knowing Java first. Definitely read the perltoot (Tom's OO Tutorial). I've heard alot of good things about Damian Conway's OO Perl book but I haven't read it myself. The advanced perl programming book has a nice section on OO. But, learning OO in a Java or C++ context would probably be the best way to start. -- Jason Bodnar + Tivoli Systems = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
Randal L. Schwartz writes: [snip] Or, I hesitate to say this here, but it's accurate: try Python. Decent object model... just an overly verbose syntax and that horrific "you must indent your code the way Guido wanted or Guido will make a visit to your house" indenting style. What about Ruby? A pure OO language: http://www.ruby-lang.org Didn't try it yet. Quoting its creator (comp.lang.ruby): Here's the quote from my (yet unpublished) article. On the Python newsgroup, questions/requests/complains like the following have been repeated time to time. * I dislike code structuring by indentation. * Why Python has no "real" garbage collection? * Why there are two distinct data types, list and tuple? * Separating types and classes are annoying. Why all values are not class instances? * Why no method is available for numbers, tuples, strings? * Explicit conversion between small integers and long integer are annoying. * Maintaining reference count in the extensions is tiresome and error prone. All of these are already solved in Ruby. matz. -- Adriano
Books, was Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
Neil Conway writes: I'm probably a novice programmer, at least by the standards of most of the people on this list. I'm 16, and since I haven't taken Computer Science at university yet, I'm a bit lacking in 'formal programming education'. I'd rather not form bad habits - is there any advice anyone can give me on how to write, clean Perl (OO or otherwise)? Are there any good books I can pick up? Maybe you should begin with some OO theory: * Object Oriented Software Construction, 2nd Edition by Bertrand Meyer * Design Patterns Gamma et al And this one is very nice also (good, readable programming): * Refactoring Martin Fowler, Editor Regards, -- Adriano
Re: Books, was Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
At 02:24 PM 5/26/00 -0300, you wrote: Neil Conway writes: I'm probably a novice programmer, at least by the standards of most of the people on this list. I'm 16, and since I haven't taken Computer Science at university yet, I'm a bit lacking in 'formal programming education'. I'd rather not form bad habits - is there any advice anyone can give me on how to write, clean Perl (OO or otherwise)? Are there any good books I can pick up? Maybe you should begin with some OO theory: * Object Oriented Software Construction, 2nd Edition by Bertrand Meyer * Design Patterns Gamma et al IMHO, Design Patterns is a very hard book for beginners. But in general I think you are right about OO design being useful I tend to prefer Bruce Eckel's approach in Thinking in Java. He talks about good OO Theory in general (eg devoting a chapter to Polymorphism which nearly all design patterns rely on) and then only later does he lead into design patterns -- but he does so as a case study of no less than 3 different ways of doing the same thing -- all logicaly but walks the user through the reasoning behind the patterns in a more practical, constructive way. And this one is very nice also (good, readable programming): * Refactoring Martin Fowler, Editor Regards, -- Adriano __ Gunther Birznieks ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Extropia - The Web Technology Company http://www.extropia.com/
RE: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
On Thu, 25 May 2000, Jason Bodnar wrote: Could someone also give me a quick list (or a link to where I can find a list) of some high-profile sites that use Perl, and pull it off? http://www.slashdot.org Careful with this - it's a high traffic site, yes. But it doesn't exactly pull off the scaleable code base problem. It took ages for Pudge (Hi Chris!) to get it into a releaseable state, and even still it's not exactly a beautiful bit of code. The problem there again: Poor initial coder and zero design. Rob Malda wasn't even out of Uni when he started slashdot, and it's code followed it's evolution, turning into a big mess. I suspect there are probably days when Chris thinks about re-writing the whole thing from scratch ;-) -- Matt/ Fastnet Software Ltd. High Performance Web Specialists Providing mod_perl, XML, Sybase and Oracle solutions Email for training and consultancy availability. http://sergeant.org http://xml.sergeant.org
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
The United Nation's IMIS Project definitely exceeded 100,000 lines of Perl. If you throw in all the utilites and admin stuff, the total probably tops 200,000. The design was decent enough that it was rare that any particular module was completlely overhauled or found to be unncessary. IMIS manages the payroll for the UN, which has one of the world's more complex payroll systems. Maybe all of it wasn't art, but it wasn't spaghetti either. Plus. there is a link here somewhere ... ah, here it is http://perl.apache.org/guide/intro.html#High_Profile_Sites_Running_mod_p I'm in the process of designing an ecommerce system, and have several options on the table. Since I love perl/mod_perl/apache, my knee-jerk reaction is to write it in perl. However, in the best interest of the project, I need to look at other possibilities, and take an objective look at the problem. This site will have major traffic, will need to be extended and changed (a lot), and needs to scale very well. My experience with Perl (as well as what I've heard from other developers) is that Perl turns to spaghetti rapidly once you hit the 10,000 line mark. I know Perl can handle the performance. What are your experiences with extendability and readability of code? Could someone also give me a quick list (or a link to where I can find a list) of some high-profile sites that use Perl, and pull it off? Theres a difference between a company using something successfully, and just getting by with something (Amazon comes to mind for a system just getting by... solving their pasta-problems by adding more developers). Thanks, I want to use Perl, but it has to be a justified decision.
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
eToys.com On Thu, 25 May 2000, Michael Nachbaur wrote: I'm in the process of designing an ecommerce system, and have several options on the table. Since I love perl/mod_perl/apache, my knee-jerk reaction is to write it in perl. However, in the best interest of the project, I need to look at other possibilities, and take an objective look at the problem. This site will have major traffic, will need to be extended and changed (a lot), and needs to scale very well. My experience with Perl (as well as what I've heard from other developers) is that Perl turns to spaghetti rapidly once you hit the 10,000 line mark. I know Perl can handle the performance. What are your experiences with extendability and readability of code? Could someone also give me a quick list (or a link to where I can find a list) of some high-profile sites that use Perl, and pull it off? Theres a difference between a company using something successfully, and just getting by with something (Amazon comes to mind for a system just getting by...solving their pasta-problems by adding more developers). Thanks, I want to use Perl, but it has to be a justified decision. -man
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
You may want to check out http://www.opensales.org/html/source.shtml, rather than starting from scratch .. I haven't used it, but it's a Perl based GPL commerce solution. -- Barry Robison - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The bite of conscience. The bite of conscience, like the bite of a dog into a stone, is a stupidity.
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
On Thu, 25 May 2000, Barry Robison wrote: You may want to check out http://www.opensales.org/html/source.shtml, rather than starting from scratch .. I haven't used it, but it's a Perl based GPL commerce solution. Or you may not. It doesn't support mod_perl. I'd suggest looking at Tallyman or Yams instead. - Perrin
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
Perrin Harkins wrote: On Thu, 25 May 2000, Barry Robison wrote: You may want to check out http://www.opensales.org/html/source.shtml, rather than starting from scratch .. I haven't used it, but it's a Perl based GPL commerce solution. Or you may not. It doesn't support mod_perl. I'd suggest looking at Tallyman or Yams instead. - Perrin The current project I'm working on actually began with Yams, but I quickly discovered that their templating system consists of hardcoded strings in a config file. That was unworkable for what I was doing (I needed to have many sites running off a single backend). I'm now using HTML::Template for my HTML needs. (Thanks Sam!). However, Yams was an excellent starting point for me - the DB schema was most valuable. I have since completely rewritten everything, so there is nothing of Yams left. My personal opinion is that is would work for a single site, but it would benefit a LOT from OO perl. Objects are the only thing currently saving my butt from meltdown. :-) YMMV of course. -- Drew Taylor Vialogix Communications, Inc. 501 N. College Street Charlotte, NC 28202 704 370 0550 http://www.vialogix.com/
RE: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
At 10:51 AM 5/25/00 -0500, Jason Bodnar wrote: On 25-May-2000 Michael Nachbaur wrote: This site will have major traffic, will need to be extended and changed (a lot), and needs to scale very well. My experience with Perl (as well as what I've heard from other developers) is that Perl turns to spaghetti rapidly once you hit the 10,000 line mark. I don't think this is a perl-only problem. I also don't think this is a problem inherent to any high level language. Large projects get messy due to poor planning and bad programming. Why would Java or C (or any other language) not suffer from the same problems as Perl? Compile-Time checking, strong-typing, syntactical glue to sandbox the developer if anything looks odd to the language itself. Well, yeah, C and Java can suffer the same problems as Perl, but because Java is so constrained as a language, the design of the language has a built in constraint. With Perl you can literally do ANYTHING, and to program Perl in a clean, OO way takes a lot of experience or a good mentor. I know Perl can handle the performance. What are your experiences with extendability and readability of code? Again, this is a function of the development team not the language. I've developed some large scale web applications in Perl (intranet so I can't link to them) and I have no problem with extensability and readability. Again, it's just a matter of properly planning things before you write that first line of code. I just wrapped up the third version of some web discussion forums we use at Tivoli and had no problem adding new features to the application. My experience is that most teams aren't as good as yours. And with IT staff shortages at a high, there are a lot more newbies to programming coming into the fray. I think that's great, but at the same time, I think we have to be realistic about the expectations behind the code produced. I think Perl is great, because I feel that if I work with someone who is new, I can teach them. But how many people in the world are really experienced with writing large-scale, clean Perl code. Even the town hall of gurus at the Oreilly PerlCon had a minor debate about the ability of Perl to do programming in-the-large. At anyrate, At least we can probably all agree that Microsoft ASP/VBScript is even worse for programming in-the-large. (for similar reasons, Perl has a syntax that supports cleaner programming than ASP/VBScript) Later, Gunther __ Gunther Birznieks ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Extropia - The Web Technology Company http://www.extropia.com/
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
On Fri, May 26, 2000 at 09:20:35AM +0800, Gunther Birznieks wrote: Well, yeah, C and Java can suffer the same problems as Perl, but because Java is so constrained as a language, the design of the language has a built in constraint. With Perl you can literally do ANYTHING, and to program Perl in a clean, OO way takes a lot of experience or a good mentor. (I'll apologise in advance as this thread spins rapidly off-topic). I'm probably a novice programmer, at least by the standards of most of the people on this list. I'm 16, and since I haven't taken Computer Science at university yet, I'm a bit lacking in 'formal programming education'. I'd rather not form bad habits - is there any advice anyone can give me on how to write, clean Perl (OO or otherwise)? Are there any good books I can pick up? TIA -- Neil Conway [EMAIL PROTECTED] Get my GnuPG key from: http://klamath.dyndns.org/mykey.asc Encrypted mail welcomed It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. -- Voltaire PGP signature
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
On May 25, Barry Robison wrote:
You may want to check out http://www.opensales.org/html/source.shtml,
rather than starting from scratch .. I haven't used it, but it's
a Perl based GPL commerce solution.
Every time I look at this code, my brain hurts.
Especially crap like this:
## nicedecimals( $s ) : $s;
#
sub nicedecimals {
my( $x,$y,$a,$b,$r,$i );
$i=$_[0];
( $left,$right ) = split /\./, $i;
$left="0" if (!$left);
$right="00" if (!$right);
$right.="0" if (length($right)==1);
$right = substr $right, 0, 2;
return "$left.$right";
} #/nicedecimals
Is there something this does that 'sprintf "%01.2f", $var' doesn't?
I guess it truncates rather than rounding the last digit, but I
have serious doubts that is intentional.
Jim
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
I'm probably a novice programmer, at least by the standards of most of the people on this list. I'm 16, and since I haven't taken Computer Science at university yet, I'm a bit lacking in 'formal programming education'. I'd rather not form bad habits - is there any advice anyone can give me on how to write, clean Perl (OO or otherwise)? Are there any good books I can pick up? Probably the best way to learn good OO Perl is to learn Java or C++. As Gunther said, other languages are much more strict so they force you to write good OO stuff. I had been programming with Perl 4 before Java came out and had never done any OO stuff. I actually argued against OO with a friend. I tried to learn Perl OO but it didn't click. I taught myself Java since it was the cool thing to do and then went back to Perl OO. I think my Perl OO is better from knowing Java first. Definitely read the perltoot (Tom's OO Tutorial). I've heard alot of good things about Damian Conway's OO Perl book but I haven't read it myself. The advanced perl programming book has a nice section on OO. But, learning OO in a Java or C++ context would probably be the best way to start. -- Jason Bodnar + Tivoli Systems = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: High-volume mod_perl based ecommerce sites?
[ date ] 2000/05/25 | Thursday | 10:28 PM [ author ] Jason Bodnar [EMAIL PROTECTED] Probably the best way to learn good OO Perl is to learn Java or C++. As Gunther said, other languages are much more strict so they force you to write good OO stuff. I'd hesitate to push C++ on a beginner, but I'm a little biased. For an introductory text on what OO is all about, I would suggest you go to: http://www.gnustep.org/resources/documentation.html and get the ObjectiveCBook.pdf. I'm not asking you to learn Objective-C, but I think it would be really helpful if you just read the first chapter of this book which has one of the best introductions to OO I've ever read. This chapter is what really made the idea of OO click for me. Maybe it will help you understand, as well. Definitely read the perltoot (Tom's OO Tutorial). I've heard alot of good things about Damian Conway's OO Perl book but I haven't read it myself. The advanced perl programming book has a nice section on OO. But, learning OO in a Java or C++ context would probably be the best way to start. I just got Damian Conway's book yesterday, and I think it would be a good book to have. I thought I had a good handle on Perl's capabilities, but this guy really knows his Perl like no other. A lot of it may be too advanced, but the beginning parts are geared towards newcomers to OO, so this book will last you a long time. As for the other suggestions... I agree with you on perltoot -- I learned a lot from that. Again, I hesitate to suggest C++. -- my 2 yen
