I learn best by taking apart something that already does something and figuring out why decisions were made in which manner.
Recently I've started working with Perl's CGI::Application framework, but found i don't really get along well with the documentation (too little information on how to best structure an application with it). There are some examples of small applications on the cgi-app website, but they're mostly structured such that they demonstrate a small feature, but contain mostly of code that one would never actually use in production. Other examples are massively huge and would require way too much time to dig through. And most of them are just stuff that runs on cgiapp, but isn't open source.
As such I am looking for something that has most base functionality like user logins, db access, some processing, etc.; is actually used for something but not so big that it would take hours to even set them up.
Does something like that exist or am i out of luck?
CGI::Application tends to be used for small, rapid-development web applications (much like Dancer, Maypole and other related modules). I haven't seen any real examples of open-source web apps built on top of it, though perhaps I'm not looking hard enough.
You could look at Catalyst. The wiki has a list of Catalyst-powered software and there are a large number of apps there - poke around, see if you like the look of the framework. Of this, this is Perl, so some of those apps will be using Template::Toolkit, some will use HTML::Mason... still, you'll get a general idea.
Try looking at Miril CMS. Although I don't know in which state it is.
I am the same with code, and had the same request. When I did not find a solution I created my own. which is https://github.com/alexxroche/Notice
I hope that it is a good solution to this request.
Notice demonstrates:
CGI::Application
CGI::Application::Plugin::ConfigAuto
CGI::Application::Plugin::AutoRunmode
CGI::Application::Plugin::DBH
CGI::Application::Plugin::Session;
CGI::Application::Plugin::Authentication
CGI::Application::Plugin::Redirect
CGI::Application::Plugin::DBIC::Schema
CGI::Application::Plugin::Forward
CGI::Application::Plugin::TT
It comes with an example mysql schema, but because of DBIC::Schema it can be used with PostgreSQL, (or anything else that DBIx::Class supports.)
I use Notice in all of my real life applications since 2007. The version in github is everything except the branding and the content.
Check out the Krang CMS.
Related
I've been on this issue for probably a good two months now and really haven't found a stable solution so I thought I'd just try to ask. I have an existing site already at http://keyjaycompound.com that runs off a CMS that I designed. While it was good at the time, I've now outgrown it and looking at it now, looks sloppy XD.
So at first I started redoing the CMS when I thought and read that there are so many CMS solutions available, why spin my wheels? It seemed more logical to get a third party solution that does the mondain tasks like article CRUD and user management where I'd primarily worry about the addons.
So I searched and tried many solutions that I thought would suite my PHP development needs. As my testing base, I needed to see how well my current site would transfer over and how much hassle would ensue. While CMS's like Drupal, E107, and others were great....on paper, neither seem to suite my need. They were either too bloated, lacking in documentation or community support, seemly comprised of large hassle for simple tasks, or just downright confusing >_<.
So now the road has put me at Frameworks now in which I'm currently trying to learn Code Igniter. Now my issue becomes security! One of the advantages of CMS systems like Drupal or Joomla is that they have (and constantly are) field tested for security holes. Something a lone modest experienced developer like myself would probably never find. However what some have told me is that the fact that the CMS would be designed by me does create somewhat of a layer of security considering it's not common to the public as much as Drupal or Wordpress.
So with that here are my questions. In consideration of time and practicality:
how do pro's actually do something like this; select a content management system for their project?
Do they start with frameworks and build out, adjusting to security problems along the way?
Do they use a particular CMS solution so they dont worry as much about common security holes?
Maybe I should start with a framework like Codeigniter and growing with it as my security and user management needs change?
Thanks guys. I'd really like to finally stick with a solution to learn so I can finally get back to developing.
This might be too old to answer, but I'm shocked nobody has bothered to answer the question! I'm in the same situation and saw this.
I started out with a CMS, but after a security attack that wiped a project site clean (and the CMS forum was completely clueless) I picked up Codeigniter. Some projects later and recreating my own CMS (twice), I settled with wordpress for small-medium projects (from personal websites to online news/magazine types). As you put it, I've outgrown my own CMS for these type of projects.
Answers (in the order you asked them):
1) It depends mostly on what it is you are doing. If its something that can be deployed with open software (with a little patience learning), you could be better off with that while making sure they're updated all the time. But if you're doing something way different from all these I'm afraid you're pretty much stuck with a custom solution, which you could accelerate with frameworks.
2,3,4) With frameworks (for starters) sticking to the security guidelines of the framework in question helps a lot, while proofing the usual suspects (form validation, session hijacking, injection, etc) . I ran my first CMS through a certified hacker and he said it was rock solid (despite how paranoid I was about security while developing). Stick to the blog of the framework for security updates (they do happen)
For CI though, a major item you have to consider thoroughly would be the user management. CI AFAIK didn't come with one at the time and picking one with security in mind made me realize how important it was.
What seems to be looking like a good idea is finding a CMS working within Codeigniter that I can extend with ease. I don't know yet if this is the same as a standalone CMS that was built on codeigniter, but tackling security problems for me would amount to running tests while being as alert as I am as I go
Sorry for the long talk. Hope this helps
I have been trying to decide if my web project is a candidate for implementation using PSGI, but I don't really see what good it would do for my application at this stage.
I don't really understand all the fuss. To me PSGI seems like a framework that provides a common interface between different Apache modules which lets you move your application between them. e.g Easily move your application from running on mod_perl to fastcgi, and provide the application support for running on both options.
Is that right, or have I missed something?
As I and the team I am a part of not only develop the application, but also pretty much do maintenance and setup of servers I don't see the value for us of being able to run on fastcgi, cgi, and mod_perl, we do just fine with just mod_perl.
Have I misunderstood the PSGI functionality, or is it just not suitable for my project?
Forget the Apache bit. It's a way of writing your application so that the choice of webserver becomes less relevant. At $work we switched to Plack/PSGI after finding our app running with very high CPU load after upgrading to Apache2 - benchmarking various Apache configs and NYTProf'ing were unable to determine the reason, and using PSGI and the Starman webserver worked out much better for us.
Now everything is handled in one place by our PSGI app (URL re-writes, static content, expiry headers, etc) rather than Apache configuration, so it's a) Perl, and b) easily tested via our standard /t/ scripts. Also our tests are now testing exactly what a user sees, rather than just the basic app itself.
It may well not be relevant to you if you're happy with Apache and mod_perl, and I'm sure others will be able to give much better answers, but for us not having to deal with anything Apache-related again is such a relief in itself. The ease of testing, and the ability to just stick in a Data::Dumper and see what's going on rather than wrestling with ModRewrite and friends, is a great boon.
Borrowing from a recent blog post by chromatic, Why PSGI/Plack Matters (Testing), here's what it is:
It's a good idea borrowed from Python's WSGI and Ruby's Rack but made Perlish; it's a simple formalizing of a pattern of web application development, where the entry point into the application is a function reference and the exit point is a tuple of header information and a response body.
That's it. That's as simple as it can be, and that simplicity deceives a lot of people who want to learn it.
An important benefit is, ibid.,
Given a Plack application, you don't have to deploy to a web server—even locally—to test your application as if it were deployed … Plack and TWMP (and Plack::Test) use the well-defined Plack pattern to make something which was previously difficult into something amazingly easy. They're not the first and they won't be the last, but they do demonstrate the value of Plack.
Started wrote an answer and after 50 lines I deleted it. Simply because it is impossible tell (in short) why is PSGI extremely cool. I'm new in PSGI too, but zilion things now are much easier as before in my apache/mod_perl era.
I can give you next advices:
read the Plack advent calendar - all days, step-by-step. You must understand the basic philosophy, what is good on onions and so on... :)
search CPAN for "Plack::Middleware::" - and read the first few lines in each. Here are MANY. (Really should be somewhere some short overview for each one, unfortunately don't know any faster way. Simply it is good to know, what middlewares are already developed. (For example, you sure will need the Plack::Middleware::Session, or Plack::Middleware::Static and so on...)
read about Plack::Builder (already done, when you done with the advent calendar) :)
try write some apps with it and will find than Plack is like the first sex - now you didn't understand that you could live without it.
ps:
If was here something like "Perl Oscar", will sure nominating MyiagavaSan. :)
If you were going to start building web sites as a consulting business on the side -- keeping your day job -- and you also had a toddler and a wife, what frameworks/tools would you pick to save you typing?
Any language.
I'm looking for a productivity superstar stack that won't tie my hands too much when I have to update the site 6 months later, or "evolve" the data model once in production.
It needs to allow me to say "yes" to the client: community features, CMS, security, moderation, AJAX, ...
I would suggest Django. Super simple to get something up and running really quick. You are using Python which has a large library to go with it. For me Ruby on Rails would be a close second.
I'd probably look at DotNetNuke. Its easy to set up (a lot of hosts will do it for you) and easy to use and put together a custom site that business's will be able to maintain in the future.
Its fairly easy to create custom modules that are specific to a business and hundreds of modules for sale (or free) that can be integrated into DNN for special uses.
Take a look at Microsoft's Sharepoint server if you'd like a pre-made framework with many options for plugging in your own code. Sharepoint is kind of a world unto itself but it is a very powerful environment.
Update: I'm surprised to have been voted down on this one. Keep in mind that the questioner specifically requested frameworks that included a CMS. Sharepoint meets this criteria - unlike straight .NET or other web development frameworks.
If you are going to vote the entry down, I think you owe it to the person who asked the question to explain why you don't think he should not even explore it as an option. You could be right - collective wisdom is what voting on SO is all about. But without an explanation, we don't know why you think you are right.
My answers are going to revolve around the .NET stack.
Use Master pages and CSS templates. This makes it so much easier to pop in a new look and feel for your customer.
For sure I'd include the Dynamic Data framework in the .NET world.
Hosting might become an issue for your customer. Questions around managing email addresses, procedures on how to quickly update the website to include the new contact phone number (different for each customer, I'd assume) Consider getting a reseller account on your favorite webhost, and dole out webhosting accounts as appropriate. There are lots of issues around this point. It may turn out to be a nice source of recurring revenue.
Build yourself a few patterns including a database wrapper which would handle all your data calls (i.e. a dll which wraps all your data calls, sets up your ADO.NET objects, runs your sproc calls, and picks up the connstring from app.config or something similar.)
This goes a long way to maintainability as well.
I would recomend going with anything MVC in a language you can undertand! Theres a couple of CMS's in python, php and ruby using that design and well... that allows you to be ready for combat for Ajax and expanding anything very fast.
This is definitely not a question that can be answered.
I prefer asp.net webforms because I think it allows for extremely rapid web app development, but I am sure you will receive recommendations for:
asp.net mvc
Ruby on Rails
PHP and some framework
Python and some framework such as Django
I believe PHP has the most pre-built apps that you can use, though asp.net also has the things you are looking for.
All of these platforms and frameworks can do what you want.
Choose between Rails and Django. They both have different strengths. I like Rails better in general, but Django's admin interface can save you a lot of time when you need it.
There's another factor to take into consideration here: what are you the most familiar with? I believe that some studies have found upwards of a 30% loss of productivity when trying to learn a new language/framework.
Sometimes, there's nothing wrong with just sticking to what you know. But if you're interested in what languages/frameworks to learn, I'll refer you to the other posts because the above was the only thing I really have to add.
I recommend looking into Grails. It uses Groovy which is similiar to Java (so if you know this already you're good to go). Groovy runs on the JVM so you can still use all the great libraries already available for Java. Yet, since it's a dynamic language with a lot of the similar bells and whistles like Ruby you can use closures and that kind of neat stuff when you need/want to. And you're not slowed down by Java's traditonal slow compile-deploy-test development cycle.
Grails is already setup with Hibernate and Spring. You can create CRUD application in practically no-time (pretty much like Rails applications), and at the same time drill down and be able to control every little details since it's built on such proven and well-supported technologies. In addition there's literally hundreds of plugins available that helps you easily set up things like mailing lists, security, AJAX components and so on.
Otherwise, if you want to set up a community site and don't want to code a single line you could always check out ning.com.
I need to create a internal website and can't figure out if we should be writing our own, or using an existing framework.
Most of the website will essentially be a front end to a database. We need to have a number of people enter data into forms. We then want to be able to show different views of all this data -- including running small queries (e.g. how many resources do we have with attribute 'X'). As is usually the case with this, we will want to tweak the UI on a regular basis.
There actual data design is not a simple 1:1 mapping of resource to entry. For example, we might track several attributes for one item as the "base set of data" for that item. Then we could have several additional sets of data.
Imagine a recipe application. You might have a recipse for a starter. This could then be referenced by several other recipes that need that same information.
I feel like this is best suited for a general framework (Ruby on Rails, Django, etc), but I wonder if it might not be good for a "traditional" CMS platform like Drupal? I specifically mention Drupal since the people that would develop this have the most knowledge using php and MySql.
I usually lean towards wanting to use an existing platform, but am interested in other people's thoughts. To give you an idea of scope, I would imagine if we wrote this from scratch we are probably talking about 3-5 weeks of development.
Would you recommend writing our own, or using an existing framework? If you would suggest using something that exists what would you recommend?
Would you consider this to be best suited for a straight framework or a straight CMS?
Thanks!
It's possible that Drupal will be a good solution for you, though you'll probably need a few key additional modules like the "Content Creation Kit" (CCK) and "Views".
Unlike other web CMS systems (WordPress, Exponent, phpNuke), Drupal treats your entries as a "pool" of content, from which you pull various subsets for different areas of your site.
There is a lot of documentation for Drupal (almost too much), the biggest problem is finding the piece that's relevant to what you're trying to achieve. Diving on to one of the interactive IRC channels can be a good idea, as the community is quite helpful and is almost always willing to give you a pointer in the right direction.
The power, flexiblity and capability of Drupal is both its biggest strength and weakness - I know it took me a bit of effort to get my head around key concepts, and I'm far from being a Drupal Expert.
One last comment: Having written my own CMS from scratch, which I abandoned in favour of Drupal, I'd suggest your 3-5 week estimate is likely on the light side.
Stay away from Drupal for any site that requires customized functionality. I recently used Drupal for a website at work, and it was VERY difficult to figure out how to get it to do what I wanted it to do. There is a lot of documentation out there, but all of it is unhelpful -- it answers very specific questions about specific issues but does not provide any context as to how you would approach building the site as a whole. If you're a programmer, using a more general framework will probably work better, as CMS's are designed for a specific kind of site, and if you want your site to have non-standard functionality you are going to be fighting the system instead of working with it. If your developers are most experienced in PHP, try one of the PHP frameworks that mimics the architecture of Rails -- e.g. cakePHP or CodeIgniter.
CMSes usually make sense when you have a broad and potentially expanding array of different content types and modes you need to handle. Drupal has literally dozens. Given than you mentioned RoR, it sounds like what you need is more of a MVC style framework. Maybe similar to the sort of thing stackoverflow was built with. .NET an issue for you?
If you are really limited to 3-5 weeks, however, I think a Rails-based strategy makes sense so go with RoR or CodeIgniter
If Drupal can do what you need easily I would say go with Drupal. I don't know much about Drupal though.
Otherwise, what you describe sounds like a data driven web app or more like a reporting app. It sounds like you might have some very specific needs or that users might want very specific needs in the future. That is something hard to get from premade software since you have no idea what users are going to request. Since I'm a programmer I would probably want to build it myself.
Funny you should ask... I just came across this in SD Time's Linkpalooza this afternoon:
Ten free powerful content management systems…
There are at least 4 more mentioned in the comments to this post.
It seems to make little sense to develop a new one with so many from which to choose!
BTW, this is neither a recommendation nor endorsement of any particular CMS.
Treat Drupal as a framework. Core modules + CCK + Views is a good start to build on.
If you're doing something that you might want to expose to other applications, consider the Services module. A lot of interesting things have been done with flex frontends connected to drupal running services with amfphp.
A few years ago I did a lot of work with CGI.pm. I'm evaluating using it again for a quick project. Can someone bring me up to speed on the current state of developing with CGI.pm in the "Web 2.0" world? What are the best libraries on CPAN to use with it? Are there clean ways to include jQuery, YUI, other CSS libs, etc, and do some AJAX. There are of course lots of libraries on CPAN but what works and what is commonly used?
We aren't still doing this?
$JSCRIPT<<EOF;
...
EOF
I realize people are going to offer Catalyst as an answer. However, many people may have legacy CGI.pm apps they simply want to enhance. Is starting over really the best answer?
Personally, I'm no fan of Catalyst (too heavy for my taste) or Mason (mixing code and HTML is bad ju-ju), but I do quite well using CGI.pm for input[1], HTML::Template for output, and CGI::Ajax to provide AJAX functionality where called for.
If you're looking at frameworks, you may also want to consider CGI::Application, which is a widely-used and lighter-weight alternative to Catalyst/Mason.
[1] I can't recall the last time I called anything other than $q->param or $q->cookie from CGI.pm. There are still a lot of tutorials out there saying to use its HTML-generation functions, but that's still mixing code and HTML in a way that's just as bad as using here docs, if not worse.
Consider using something more modern, for example Catalyst. It will make your life much easier and you won't have to reinvent the wheel. I understand that it is just a small project, but from my experience many small projects in time become large ones :)
The "web 2.0" apps that I've worked with usually use client-side JavaScript to request JSON data from the server, then use that data to update the page in-place via DOM.
The JSON module is useful for returning structured data to a browser.
As far as including JavaScript, HTML, or whatever in a here doc - that was never a good idea, and still isn't. Instead, use one of the plethora of template modules to be found on CPAN. For a CGI, I'd avoid "heavy" modules like Mason or Template Toolkit, and use a lighter module for quicker startup, such as Text::Template, or Template::Simple.
Yes, you can write perfect web2.0 web applications WITHOUT using any framework on the server side in any language Perl, Python, Java, etc and WITHOUT using any JavaScript libraries/framework on the client side. The definition of web 2.0 is kind of a loose definition, and I'm guessing by web2.0, you mean Ajax or partial page refresh, then all you would really need is to focus on the following:
Know about the XmlHttpRequest object.
Know how to return JSON object from the server to the client.
Know how to safely evaluate/parse the JSON object using JavaScript and know to manipulate the DOM. Also, at least know about innerHTML. InnerHTML is helpful occasioanally.
Know CSS.
Having said that, it's a lot easier to use some framework on the server side, but not because it's required by web2.0 and it's a lot easier to use some JavaScript on the client like jQuery, mootools, YUI. And you can mix-and-match depends on your needs and your tastes. Most JavaScript provides wrapper around the XmlHttpRequest so that it works across all browsers. No one write "naked" XmlHttpRequest anymore, unless you want to show some samples.
It's perfectly possible to write "Web 2.0" apps using CGI.pm, but you'll have to do the work yourself. From what I've seen, the focus in the Perl development community has been on developing successor frameworks to CGI, not on writing helper modules to let legacy apps get bootstrapped into modern paradigms. So you're somewhat on your own.
As to whether to start over, what are you really trying to accomplish? Everyone's definition of "Web 2.0" is somewhat different.
If you're trying to introduce a few modern features (like AJAX) to a legacy app, then there's no reason you need to start over.
On the other hand if you're trying to write something that truly looks, feels, and works like a modern web app (for example, moving away from the page-load is app-state model), you should probably consider starting from the ground up. Trying to make that much of a transformation happen after the fact is going to be more trouble than it's worth for anything but the most trivial of apps.
I agree with Adam's answer, you probably want to use Catalyst. That being said, if you really don't want to, there's nothing preventing you from using only CGI.pm. The thing is, Catalyst is a collection of packages that do the things you want to make Web 2.0 easy. It combines the various templating engines such as Template Toolkit or Mason with the various ORM interfaces like DBIx::Class and Class::DBI.
Certainly you don't have to use these things to write Web 2.0 apps, it's just a good idea. Part of your question is wondering if javascript and CSS frameworks like jQuery, or prototype require anything from the server-side code. They don't, you can use them with any kind of server-side code you want.
For new apps, if you don't find Catalyst to your taste, Dancer is another lightweight framework you may like. There are also plenty of others, including CGI::Simple, Mojo/Mojolicious, Squatting...
Any of these lightweight frameworks can take care of the boring parts of web programming for you, and let you get on with writing the fun parts the way you want to.
If the jump from CGI.pm to Catalyst seems too daunting then perhaps something like Squatting might be more appropriate?
Squatting is a web microframework and I have found it ideal for quick prototyping and for replacing/upgrading my old CGI scripts.
I have recently built a small "web 2.0" app with Squatting using jQuery with no issues at all. Inside the CPAN distribution there is an example directory which contains some programs using jQuery and AJAX including a very interesting [COMET](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_(programming)) example which makes use of Continuity (which Squatting "squats" on by default).
NB. If required then you can later "squat" your app onto Catalyst with Squatting::On::Catalyst
There is also CGI::Ajax.