[plug] seeking perl wisdom

[ryan at is.as.geeky.as]

> If you were going to develop a web site from scratch - knowing what you
> know now - that would require a high degree of dynamic content, and were
> going to process online transactions (including credit card and cheque
> order) using a RDB like Postgresql, what method of development would you
> favour?

<speculative heasrsay>

Purely my opinion for 'web applications' ... since I discovered
HTML::Template and CGI::Application my life has never been the same.  If you
want to force yourself to write some mildly reusable and readable Perl code,
CGI::Application helps a lot and if you ever try to put HTML code in a Perl
script it is my strong belief you should be brutally slain.  If you manage
to survive, when you go back to maintain the program you'll wish you had
been slain :)  CGI::Application and HTML::Template were designed to co-exist
also.

Just pick one framework you like the sound of and use it though, if it gets
too awkward it is not the tool for you ... and you'll learn alot along the
way, we don't want a Perl module flame war on here.  If i had chosen to read
up on a different templating method before HTML::Template its name would
probably appear above instead.

mod_perl is worth knowing how to turn on even if you don't use any of it's
specific power, it runs Perl scripts 10-20 times faster on my servers as a
general rule.  Using that, and the plethora of Apache:: modules can provide
some nice server-managed session and authentication management.

I'd suggest becoming a regular at perlmonks.org too, they have newbie
tutorials and forums to get your along the way.  I learnt a fair bit there
when i started out.   And the infamous Camel book ("Programming Perl" by
Larry Wall and Randal Schwartz [who even answers questions on perlmonks]) is
worth getting, as is the Perl Cookbook IMHO.

Oh and I use DBI/DBD for database interaction.  There are a few tricks with
it to avoid sluggish behaviour, but they are spelt out quite plainly in most
tutorials on it.

</speculative heasrsay>

Ryan