Things we talked about at YapcNA 08

[Leonard Miller]

Hello everyone,

My name is Leonard Miller (olegm on irc), and I gave a beginner's talk
on CGI::APP in Chicago, and I learned in at the CGI::App BOF, that there
were a number of things we needed/wanted to change about CGI::App.

While I am new to the project and this team, it felt that as a group,
some direction was needed, and some decisions needed to be made. I am
writing this, to prompt discussion for the direction and decisions.

One of the things we talked was to create a startup script similar to
Catalyst, that will get you working quickly with CGI::App. Along with
that, we were looking to create a bundle/package that would hold all
that CGI::App needs for a new installation.

I know that there was conversation on the listserv about
Module::Starter::Plugin::CGIApp, and I wanted to make sure that the
concerns of those who wanted the starter script were addressed.

The last the we came up with was to come up with a new/better name. I
have several names although they are not all mine, I would like to post
them here and start some discussion:
Spark
Titanium
Stimulus
Synergy
SWAP - Simple Web Application Platform
SWAF - ... Framework


Thank you for listening, please let me know what you think on these
issues. I will be away from the keyboard for the next two days, so I
will hear all  your comments on Sunday.

Leonard

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[Richard Dice]

Hi Leonard,

This effort sounds very similar to the CGI::Application::Framework (CAF,
occasionally we'd call it "caffeine") module that Michael Graham and I
released in 2005.  We maintained it for a few months afterwards but not
since since -- I'm a manager myself these days and barely code, and he's not
in a position where he can release software to the larger world.  Still, you
might be interested in reviewing it and seeing what lessons you can learn
from it.

Cheers,
 - Richard

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 4:00 PM, Leonard Miller <leonard@...> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> My name is Leonard Miller (olegm on irc), and I gave a beginner's talk on
> CGI::APP in Chicago, and I learned in at the CGI::App BOF, that there were a
> number of things we needed/wanted to change about CGI::App.
>
> While I am new to the project and this team, it felt that as a group, some
> direction was needed, and some decisions needed to be made. I am writing
> this, to prompt discussion for the direction and decisions.
>
> One of the things we talked was to create a startup script similar to
> Catalyst, that will get you working quickly with CGI::App. Along with that,
> we were looking to create a bundle/package that would hold all that CGI::App
> needs for a new installation.
>
> I know that there was conversation on the listserv about
> Module::Starter::Plugin::CGIApp, and I wanted to make sure that the concerns
> of those who wanted the starter script were addressed.
>
> The last the we came up with was to come up with a new/better name. I have
> several names although they are not all mine, I would like to post them here
> and start some discussion:
> Spark
> Titanium
> Stimulus
> Synergy
> SWAP - Simple Web Application Platform
> SWAF - ... Framework
>
>
> Thank you for listening, please let me know what you think on these issues.
> I will be away from the keyboard for the next two days, so I will hear all
>  your comments on Sunday.
>
> Leonard
>
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>
>

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[R. Hicks]

Leonard Miller wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> My name is Leonard Miller (olegm on irc), and I gave a beginner's talk
> on CGI::APP in Chicago, and I learned in at the CGI::App BOF, that there
> were a number of things we needed/wanted to change about CGI::App.
>
> While I am new to the project and this team, it felt that as a group,
> some direction was needed, and some decisions needed to be made. I am
> writing this, to prompt discussion for the direction and decisions.
>
> One of the things we talked was to create a startup script similar to
> Catalyst, that will get you working quickly with CGI::App. Along with
> that, we were looking to create a bundle/package that would hold all
> that CGI::App needs for a new installation.
>
> I know that there was conversation on the listserv about
> Module::Starter::Plugin::CGIApp, and I wanted to make sure that the
> concerns of those who wanted the starter script were addressed.
>
> The last the we came up with was to come up with a new/better name. I
> have several names although they are not all mine, I would like to post
> them here and start some discussion:
> Spark
> Titanium
> Stimulus
> Synergy
> SWAP - Simple Web Application Platform
> SWAF - ... Framework
>
>

How about "Mojo". Short easy to say...and a cool word.

Robert


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[Rhesa Rozendaal-2]

R. Hicks wrote:

> Leonard Miller wrote:
>> The last the we came up with was to come up with a new/better name. I
>> have several names although they are not all mine, I would like to post
>> them here and start some discussion:
>> Spark
>> Titanium
>> Stimulus
>> Synergy
>> SWAP - Simple Web Application Platform
>> SWAF - ... Framework
>>
>>
>
> How about "Mojo". Short easy to say...and a cool word.

Because: http://search.cpan.org/dist/MojoMojo/ ;-)


Rhesa

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[R. Hicks]

Rhesa Rozendaal wrote:

> R. Hicks wrote:
>> Leonard Miller wrote:
>>> The last the we came up with was to come up with a new/better name. I
>>> have several names although they are not all mine, I would like to
>>> post them here and start some discussion:
>>> Spark
>>> Titanium
>>> Stimulus
>>> Synergy
>>> SWAP - Simple Web Application Platform
>>> SWAF - ... Framework
>>>
>>>
>>
>> How about "Mojo". Short easy to say...and a cool word.
>
> Because: http://search.cpan.org/dist/MojoMojo/ ;-)
>
>
> Rhesa

Totally different...but I see the point.

Robert


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[Mark Stosberg]

> The last the we came up with was to come up with a new/better name. I
> have several names although they are not all mine, I would like to post
> them here and start some discussion:
> Spark
> Titanium

I made good progress on Titanium, but then completely lost momentum about a
week after the conference. However, there's enough done that it could be useful
to publish my progress, I just don't feel great about publishing something
that's not as polished as I wanted.

Titanium is a sub-class of CGI::Application that bundles several useful,
popular plugins by default, but has little to no code of it's own.

As part of providing a better user experience, the documentation from
CGI::Application was copied and overhauled as well. This included documenting
some key plugin features directly (since Titanium provides them directly), and
also omitting some parts of CGI::Application that are advanced or unnecessary
for common cases.

For example, it omits how to write a plugin using callbacks, and documents
using $c->redirect(), but not $c->header_type('redirect').  Those docs are not
disappearing, they are just in the more advanced/technical CGI::Application
module, and not in the more user-friendly Titanium module.

I would also like to take the user-friendliness further and bundle the
"starter" script, and ideally even be able to ship Titanium with all it's
dependencies,  so you can just unpack it in a directory and start hacking.

Because Titanium makes several more decisions and recommendations about plugins
to use, some new users will be happy that it's easier to get started with, but
some existing users will surely disagree that whatever plugin is loaded by
default.

To address that, the documentation would describe how we might use a
"Titanium::Alloy::" name space, so other people might publish sister modules,
which take the same approach, but bundle different sets of plugins by default.

Unlike "forks", CGI::Application plugins would continue to be shared between
all of these projects.

Finally, people who have already developed a custom sub-class that they re-use
can continue to use CGI::Application, and plugins will compatible with them as
well.

A big part of my loss is momentum is that I don't need Titanium myself because
I already have a custom sub-class of CGI::App that works well. The reason to
build it is because I believe it's a good way to build quality software easily,
and I think it would help speed up development for some people.

I think my reality is that even if I am able to follow-through on launching
v1.0, I'm not sure I have the energy to continue to lead it where I want to see
it going in terms of all-around ease of use and packaging.

If other people share this vision, perhaps we can accomplish it together.

    Mark

--
 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   Mark Stosberg            Principal Developer  
   mark@...     Summersault, LLC    
   765-939-9301 ext 202     database driven websites
 . . . . . http://www.summersault.com/ . . . . . . . .



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