[cgiapp] I am thinking of writing a "Model" class for the CGI::Application

[NP Bamber]

I have been using CGI::Application/HTML::Template for a while now and I 
like the feeling that the code base is small enough that I can master 
its internals. However I am finding that all my code needs refactoring 
for various reasons and I need something more like a "content management 
system". I do think I should learn "catalyst" if only for professional 
reasons however I would like to continue using the Titanium framework. I 
believe I can see an approach that would not require a lot of work, but 
would allow me to push some of my data structures (particularly 
metadata) out of perl and into a database. I have managed to extract 
from my head the following manifesto:

   The L<Titanium> framework does a reasonable job of the controller
   part of the    model-view-controller concept of web site 
architecture. Various
   template modules, for example    L<HTML::Template> can function as 
the view part and they are well
   integrated with our controller.    There are various candidates for a 
model class, for example
   L<DBIx::Class>. Another part of the Titanium    framework, 
L<CGI::Application::Dispatch> can be used to translate
   from search engine friendly URLs to    a database key - in fact the 
wildcard parameter provided by the
   Dispatch fall-through rule will do nicely.    All that is missing is 
a perl module to take the Dispatch wildcard,
   pull the template file name and the    various template parameters 
from the database and in a standard run
   mode stuff the parameters into the    template. This class provides 
the abstract base, that will be
   derived from by classes such as 
L<CGI::Application::Model::DBIx-Class>.    For particular processes such 
as form processing non-standard run
   modes might be returned from the database.    The standard run mode 
for processing off the database is installed
   by the class L<CGI::Application::Plugin::Model> and this module    
will also instantiate the module object. Keeping a list of pages on
   a database enables other finctionality provided by the classes    
L<CGI::Application::Plugin::Sitemap>,
   L<CGI::Application::Plugin::RSS> and    
L<CGI::Application::Plugin::Search>.

I can also see only one candidate for an alternative in the existing 
CPAN archive. That would be to represent "web pages" as objects using 
the Class::DBI and feed them into the template using the dot notation. 
However this seems to me to commit one to usage of Class::DBI (which 
there should be no commitment to any database encapsulation layer) and 
maybe it is entangling the view and model parts. Advice, correction or 
encouragement please.