Only 2 years ago I was pitching a "Perl application development" title to an O'Reilly editor (who shall remain nameless) who asked me why I thought mod_perl was a "big deal" (since my outline had a heavy emphasis on it). After explaining what I thought about it, I got a curious look, followed by the comment, "yeah, we don't think that is really going places." And to this day, many Perl people still don't understand how you could build large applications using mod_perl, as opposed to CGI + templates and PHP (or other HTML markups). Threads like (http://use.perl.org/~jjohn/journal/20761) still make the mistake of comparing mod_perl to PHP. mod_perl invites developers to invent new CMSs, new ways to authenticate, to manage sites, to log data, new ways to handle content. PHP is for writing web sites. I personally didn't know whether mod_perl's audience is that much larger than its current user base; this thread proves it is.
I have used mod_perl 1 since soon after it became available, building several CMSs, custom markup languages (as have we all), and so on. Verio's entire line (almost) of web hosting customer interfaces is built on mod_perl and XSLT. This isn't emerging technology anymore! I took the dive to mp2 a few months ago, and am astounded by both the Apache 2 API and its Perl translation. You have all completely outdone yourselves, and mp is a bigger deal than ever.
I would suggest that future mp2 articles (on perl.com and elsewhere) take some time to explain the Apache API and why it is by far the best choice for Perl server development, before diving into the particulars of accomplishing something with it. Perhaps a "mod_perl for Beginners: All Your Servers ..." article could be useful, or adapting Randal's intro talk, or something like that.
In the end though, there's a lot of documentation. The eagle book is great, and the cookbook was mentioned too. Until people read, there's not much we can do about it.
- Dan
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