[cgiapp] Dancer, URIs, and Web Apps

[Mark Stosberg]

Thanks for commenting Bill. 

> > 5. clean URIs (routes) without screwing around with bazillion settings
> 
> To me, this seems to be more of a current programming fad than a real  
> user issue. I've never had a single user complain that long or ugly  
> URIs bothered them.

Let's look at one:

/cgi-bin/user.cgi/edit?user_id=23

That URL has a lot of junk in it tht is about implementation details
that essentially says "blah blah blah" to the user. This clean version
communicates the essential:

/user/23/edit

Users may not complain because they aren't aware there there's any other
way to do it. But presented with the old and new side by side, I think
easy to agree which style is more pleasant to use.

With some support from your framework, clean URIs are easy to create and
process.

> If hiding URLs from users is a design goal it also seems like it is  
> easily solved by using AJAX to update content.

With that method you would also have be careful to not break the back
button, which means making sure the URL gets updated, which is just
trading one kind of clean URL design for another.

> Personally, I think the CGI Application Framework project goals might  
> do well to include how the framework can integrate tighter with the  
> client side features available now and those coming in HTML5. This  
> would obviously require making the inclusion of javascript in output  
> something that is easier to do.
> 
> HTML::Prototype is a good example of what I mean. Helper tags for  
> JavaScript are needed to really take advantage of all the upcoming  
> potential for web app developers. The client side data storage features  
> in HTML5 go a long way past cookies. Among other things, this will add  
> some offline feature capabilities to our repertoire.

I think using Perl to generate JavaScript was a bad idea. It creates
more complexity, but you still need to know and use JavaScript. Perhaps
if it eliminated the need to worry about JavaScript completely I would
see it as valuable, but it does not.

It's not clear to me what else a framework like our should be doing to 
integrate with the client side. I see that as primarily being a concern
for templates.  Someone could perhaps ships some sample templates for
website developers with a web framework, I suppose. 

> It won't be long before we can't ignore these mobile devices. Google  
> boldly stated this week that "In three years desktops will be  
> irrelevant". That's because everyone will be using web apps. Apple is  
> certainly moving that direction with the MacBook Air, iPhone/iTouch,  
> and now the iPad, and of course there are "Netbooks".

It's not at all clear me that a future of tethered devices like the
"iDevices" is one we should be looking forward to and enabling:

http://www.slate.com/id/2223214/pagenum/all/

> That's more than I've said here than in the past five years. I do hope  
> some of you find it useful.

I appreciate you speaking up.

    Mark

-- 
http://mark.stosberg.com/