RE: mod_perl presence at OSCON (and other CONs) is at danger
First, let me preface my comments with the admission that I'm not a perl programmer. However, I do recruit a lot of perl programmers! What isn't really being discussed is that fact that new programmers often work with whatever technology allows them to cheaply get sites up and running on the web. Do a Yahoo search on "PHP web hosting" and you get 15.9 million links. Do the same search for "mod_perl web hosting" and you get 374,000. Still a lot, but you get the point. Until people can pick a cheap, reliable, and well-known hosting service where mod_perl is one of the main options, you limit your ability to attract new programmers. Go after the hosting companies with a complete mod_perl "package" that will be attractive to their clients. You might convince people if they had mod_perl as an easy choice (??). Perhaps I'm being a bit too simplistic, but I really like to recruit the young, talented, and eager people. I find they often use the tools that present themselves to them at the right time in their growing career. I also pulled this Perl-Users digest from http://www.mit.edu:8008/bloom-picayune.mit.edu/perl/23077 so I want to give full credit. It makes a similar point but with additional details that may be of value. As would be expected, Garry received a fair amount of well, response, to his comments, but you can check out the full digest if you'd like. Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 5298 Volume: 10 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thu Jul 31 11:10:33 2003 ) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 08:10:09 -0700 (PDT) From: Perl-Users Digest <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Perl-Users Digest) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 13:24:59 +0100 From: Garry Heaton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Web development and Perl 6 Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I'm web developer who's been usinng Perl/CGI.pm for a while before switching to PHP. IMHO if Perl 6 doesn't come with some kind of SDK for web developoment, ie. at least a templating system, then it will become increasingly marginalised in the web development world due to the proliferation of PHP within modestly priced hosting deals. It's not enough to say mod_perl/Embperl/Mason or whatever for the simple reason that many new web developers and teachers use cheap hosting deals which invariably come fully configured with PHP/MySQL and nothing more than standard Perl/CGI.pm. These hosts won't consider running mod_perl or any templatinng system. In fact I've come across many more expensive hosting deals with similar constraints regarding Perl. mod_perl is too great a risk for shared hosting environments. Perl is in too many bits and pieces, at least where web development is concerned. DBI, DBD::mysql, mod_perl, Mason/Embperl. That's a non-starter with most hosting deals so you're average web developer turns to PHP which usually comes fully optimised without the need for additional modules. I'm talking about basic bread and butter database website work here, not LWP jobs. Perl started out as a sysadmin tool but there's no reason to stay in that niche now we have Perl 6 on the way. If we don't seize the chance to bundle a proper web development SDK with Perl 6 PHP will just become the de facto server-side scripting language for web development. Garry Heaton -- Report problems: http://perl.apache.org/bugs/ Mail list info: http://perl.apache.org/maillist/modperl.html List etiquette: http://perl.apache.org/maillist/email-etiquette.html
RE: Modperl and Distance Education
Looks like PHP has quite a lock on this market. Many of the online collaborative systems are PHP/mysql based. Top open-source contenders in this market would be: Moodle (moodle.org) ATutor (atutor.ca) Ilias (www.ilias.uni-koeln.de/ios/index-e.html) Note that these are collaborative learning management systems attempted to go head-to-head with commercial LMS's. I'm sure that there are some that are perl-based, but these are getting a lot of attention and they're all PHP-based. Todd From: Alfred Vahau [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 4:46 PMTo: ModperlSubject: Modperl and Distance Education Hi,Are there any major distance education sites powered by modperl technology?I work for a University with 7 campuses scattered around the country. Provision of distanceeducation through online access to teaching material and academic transcripts are among the longterm goals of the university.I find it challenging to develop a site to meet the university's requirements. It has been proposedthat I consider Java or PHP applications to develop the site to include online directory for allstaff and students connected to the university. However, I am confident that I can meet the sameobjectives using modperl technology. Somewhere I think I can use Bricolage or Mason and I amwondering whether these are appropriate technologies to consider. Or are there other applications ofmodperl relating to delivery of distance education that I am not aware of.Coming from a traditional Unix background in connection with academic research, I turned to Perl in2000 to survive in an environment dominated by Windows operating system. I continue to work on myown Breeze Project for which an early account was posted on the Oreilly site in 2002. Since then I havebeen following developments and have tested modperl and apache on trial basis.Any pointers to help in broadening my options would be highly appreciated.Many thanks in advance,Alfred VahauDirectorInformation Technology ServicesUniversity of Papua New GuineaInformation Resources Centre
RE: [OT] modperl vs. Ruby
Very cool. R-on-R has something similar to this called "locomotive" for OS X. Really makes a try-before-you-buy scenario reasonable. I'm thrilled that this exists for catalyst since I very much concerned that perl needs a boost from such a framework and if there are huge stumbling blocks to testing out the framework, you're going to lose people. Cool and thanks. Todd > -Original Message- > From: Christopher H. Laco [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 10:23 AM > To: Harry Zhu > Cc: Enno; modperl@perl.apache.org > Subject: Re: [OT] modperl vs. Ruby > > Harry Zhu wrote: > > I'm very much interested. > > > > Harry. > > > > > > > > - Original Message - From: "Enno" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: "Frank Wiles" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Cc: "Leo Lapworth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; > > > > Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 10:46 AM > > Subject: Re: [OT] modperl vs. Ruby > > > > > >> Just starting to look at Catalyst, cause we have to > rewrite a lot of > >> stuff here. So far I'm just installing and the incredible > amount of > >> dependencies there are, are scaring the hell out of me (think huge > >> processes). > >> > >> It looks like its including an immense load of pure perl > modules for > >> functionality thats already present in mp2+apreq2. (but I might be > >> wrong) > >> > >> So what I'm gonna do now is benchmark a simple catalyst > app versus a > >> pure > >> mp2+apreq2 handler. > >> > >> Will post results back to the list, if anyone is interested. > >> > >> Enno > > I'm jumping in late here, but I felt the need to since you > mentioned the number of dependencies for a Catalyst install. > For those who want to try it without installing everything > under the sun, give CatInABox a try. > > http://handelframework.com/downloads/CatInABox.tar.gz > > All you have to do is unpack it, run the start.sh script to > setup PATH/PERL5LIB, and you're ready to give Catalyst a try > in standalone mode using it's own dev server. > > That package also includes the Catalyst::Engine::Apache* > stuffs as well for loading Cat apps under MP/MP2. > > -=Chris > >
