[cgiapp] packages autouse?

[P Kishor]

On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 12:26 PM, Rhesa Rozendaal<perl at rhesa.com> wrote:
> P Kishor wrote:
>>
>> What I do find annoying is the number steps involved in adding a new
>> run mode, esp. when using CAD.
>>
>> First, add the new run mode to the dispatch table.
>>
>> Second, add the run mode to the setup in the module (assuming one is
>> not using AutoRunmode... some problems have been alluded to using
>> AutoRunmode, esp. in mod_perl environments.
>>
>> Third, create the darn run mode.
>>
>> Fourth, create the template for the run mode.
>>
>> Dunno if there is a quicker way.
>
> There are two that I know of: CAP::AutoRunmode and CAP::RunmodeDeclare. The
> latter is mine, but the former works great too.

Hi Rhesa, CAP::RunmodeDeclare looks very interesting. I actually used
CAP::AutoRunmode successfully, but I remember seeing a thread on this
mailing list itself about CAP::AutoRunmode causing problems under
certain circumstances, particularly under mod_perl.

>
> I don't think you should count creating a template. After all,
>
>    runmode hello { return "Hello world!" }
>
> is perfectly valid.

You are correct. Counting making a template as a step in the process
is a bit unfair, however, my point was not to criticize the tools
negatively. My point is -- this is something that could be made
easier.

There has been some discussion on the Mac side of things (I am a Mac
user) about what is termed as the "untitled document syndrome." Some
programs force you to first save a document somewhere before they let
you type in it. This causes a problem, it gives rise to impedance. The
user now has to think of where to save the document, what to call it
(ever noticed the slew of "untitled.txt" and "untitled1.txt" and so on
in a user's hard disk? There are several other programs that you can
just launch and start typing, without having to think about where you
are saving the document and what you are going to call it. Some even
save automatically, every few seconds. This lowers the impedance,
makes things easier.

That is the ideal that I am trying to push for. Right now, the way
things are, we have way too many steps. Sure, one would want to have a
template separate from the program as that is good practice. But,
could the other steps be minimized?

I am not familiar with Ruby on Rails, but I have heard that this ease
is what made RoR so popular.

Most web applications need certain basic scaffolding... logging in and
user authentication is one of them, and sadly, a pretty complicated
scaffolding -- allow creation, editing and deletion of users,
retrieval and resetting of passwords, allow logging in and logging
out, store the session information, and so on. The Titanium project
seems like a great start in this direction, but I am sure a lot of
work is required beyond just packaging a bunch of modules together.

This list has programmers and developers way more experienced and
accomplished than I am or will ever be. Hopefully, we will be able to
develop cgiapp into a tool that can make it easy for folks like me to
develop easy, secure, fast and attractive web applications easily.


>
> rhesa
>



-- 
Puneet Kishor http://www.punkish.org/
Carbon Model http://carbonmodel.org/
Charter Member, Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org/
Science Commons Fellow, Geospatial Data http://sciencecommons.org
Nelson Institute, UW-Madison http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
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