Which Perl web framework should I start with?

Question

I have used Perl for years, but mostly for text processing and system management. Now I want to build a web site with "user management(user registration, user logon/logout, user settings)" feature, but I don't know what's the quickest way to do this.

I need to find a Perl web framework and develop on it or modify some sample web application (CMS or not)?

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Thanks a lot for everyone's advice.

It seems I have to spend more time on looking at the frameworks you mentioned and make a decision. Many Thanks.

Answer 1

You might want to look at catalyst.

Answer 2

I like CGI::Application. Big number of plugins makes building sites easier. And it is simple to study. Of course, it it less capable than Catalyst.

Answer 3

On the Perl5 wiki there is a good list of:

• Web frameworks
• Applications (which include CMS)

It depends on what your requirements beyond "user management" are to find which is the best fit between web frameworks and a CMS type application.

Because your new to web frameworks then I would recommend Catalyst if you went down this route. Two Catalyst books have been published which you would find helpful. The latest is hot of the press from Apress:

The Definitive Guide to Catalyst: Writing Extensible, Scalable and Maintainable Perl–Based Web Applications

/I3az/

Answer 4

You may want to give a look (and a try) at Dancer: http://dancer.sukria.net

It's a microframework designed to be effortless for the developer. It's strongly inspired by Sinatra, from the Ruby land.

To start playing with Dancer, all you need is to issue the following command:

$ sudo cpan Dancer

Once all the dependcies are installed (Dancer depends on only 3 modules) you can start writing your application. It's as simple as the following example:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Dancer;

get '/' => sub {
   "Hello, World!"
};

dance;

Then run this script and you have a running webserver listening.

If your application gets bigger, Dancer can also be a good choice: it supports different kind of template, session and logger engines and can be run under different environments. It also supports the great PSGI architecture wich will allow you to deploy your application under quite any web server you like (see http://plackperl.org).

So far, people who tried Dancer seem to be very pleased by its ease of use, and the project gathers more than 70 followers on GitHub (see http://github.com/sukria/Dancer). Maybe you'll like it as well.