Recently in Misc Category

A few months ago I wrote a missive lamenting the coolness going on in other languages in terms of web frameworks and the dearth of magical leaps forward in Perl. Well, I take it all back. Serves me right for not recognizing hype for what it is.

Each of the frameworks from other languages that I examined promised great leaps in productivity for programmers of that language. But what I came to realize was that these were improvements that I had already experienced in Perl. The streamlining did not come from the language at all. One scripting language, it seems, is pretty much as good as the next when it comes to productivity for the skilled programmer. No, the great leap forward came from applying a well organized web application development framework and its associated tools to the problem of web development, where before there had been no organized solution and only a rudimentary tool set.

But I have been using Perl web application frameworks for years. (I use the plural of framework because TIMTOWTDI in Perl.) Apache+mod_perl is an amazingly rich web application framework on its own. Perl was (I believe) the first scripting language to be embedded in the web server itself, and is still the best option for manipulating the rich, complex internals of Apache. HTML::Mason's ApacheHandler is a simple layer on top of mod_perl that is a highly effective solution to certain classes of problems. Richer, more modern frameworks like Catalyst and Jifty do more for you, but also require you to do more learning to get productive. In Perl, we're spoiled for choice, which is a problem all its own. But the point is, the other scripting languages haven't beat Perl in the web framework race. They are just now catching up!

This is certainly not a call for Rails developers to switch to Perl. Why should they? The fact of the matter is that web frameworks in whatever language are substantially similar to one another, because they are each a solution to the exact same problem, built under similar constraints.

Programmers should use whatever language fits their mind best, because that is where they will find themselves most productive. For some people, that's Java. (Some people are weird.) For some its Python or Ruby. More power to you. But if you are productive in Perl, don't be lured away to some other language by the greener-looking grass on their side of the fence.The grass is plenty green right here.

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[UPDATE: I stand corrected. Informed commenters point out that though the source was available, MT was never technically "open source". To quote Richard Blain, "I was misinformed" -V]

It's ironic, to me at least. When I first got interested in blog software, I heard that Movable Type was the one to beat. It was written in Perl, which was my language of choice; it was open source (so you could make your own modifications); and it was by many accounts the most advanced blogging software out there (but not without argument, of course, this is the Internet).

Five minutes after I discovered it, the company announced that their 3.0 version would carry a new, commercial license. Suddenly being Perl was useless, because I could no longer modify, fork, or crib from the code. I moved on, and finally settled on Wordpress.

Now, Movable Type is once again opening its source code. Thanks to Ben and Mena for contributing this code back to the community. Ultimately, open source software is not about the software, it's about the community of users, and we users appreciate it when the companies we support share with us. Keep up the good work!

Our friends over at A List Apart have been publishing pearls of wisdom for years, and here is the proof. These articles on CSS drop shadows are actually from 2004, but the techniques are still (mostly) valid today. You can probably dispense with the extra hurdles they went through to support IE for Mac, though. Does anyone use IE on the Mac anymore?

• CSS Drop Shadows - A great technique with minimal image manipulation.
• CSS Drop Shadows II: Fuzzy Shadows - An improvement on the previous drop shadow effect.
• Onion Skinned Drop Shadows - And finally(?), the onion-skin technique for CSS drop shadows, for those with subtle and refined tastes.

• Daily del.icio.us Links Script for Wordpress
  A Perl script for posting del.icio.us links to your wordpress blog on a regular basis. I'll look at the code later to see if it is any better than the service Delicious provides.
  (tags: perl webdev blog blogging delicious wordpress)
• WP Plugin: Gregarious › Vacuous Virtuoso
  This Wordpress plugin goes the other way, making it easy for readers to submit your site to various social bookmarking services. I think there are many others like this too. Have search for yourself.
  (tags: wordpress plugin digg blog blogging)
• Apple Safari 3 Public Beta. For Windows. Huh?
  Apple has released the beta for Safari 3. The shocker: now there is a Windows version. But why? More on this later.
  (tags: safari browser apple windows webdev)
• jQuery: » jQuery Dashboard Widget
  Finally a dashboard widget I might actually use! Browse the jQuery API documentation via a fast-access Dashboard widget - even if you are offline. Nice.
  (tags: jquery javascript widget mac osx api documentation dashboard)

As a webmaster, especially if you are a solo webmaster, it's hard to keep all the moving parts of the web in your head at once, let alone the detailed syntax of every HTML attribute and configuration option. It's vital to have the right references at your fingertips to get those details fast. These are eight references every webmaster should have on their quick bookmarks list.

• HTML 4.01 Specification - Because the XHTML spec says "just like HTML 4 except..."
• XHTML 1.0 (Second Edition) - Describes the differences between HTML 4 and XHTML.
• Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 revision 1 - The CSS Specification.
• HTTP/1.1 (RFC2616) - The HTTP spec, useful as a quick reference to HTTP status codes and official headers.
• JavaScript - Mozilla Development Center - Probably the best one-stop for Javascript references, including the DOM and a collection of articles on AJAX and DHTML.
• MySQL 5.0 Reference Manual - If you are building server-side applications, chances are very good you are using MySQL, in which case you will refer to this often.
• Internet Explorer Developer Center - If you build web front-ends, you probably spend a huge chunk of your time tweaking around the differences in various browsers. Hopefully Microsoft's docs on IE can help smooth things out.
• Apache HTTP Server Documentaton - Because you need it.