Slashdot Mirror
BBC Creates 'Perl on Rails'
Bogtha writes "Long-time users of Perl for their public websites, and having successfully used Ruby on Rails for internal websites, the BBC have fused the two by creating a 'Perl on Rails' that has the advantages of rapid development that Rails brings, while performing well enough to be used for the Beeb's high-traffic public websites. This is already powering one of their websites, and is set to be used in the controversial iPlayer project as well."
If it weren't for the fact that Slashdot uses @#$%ing slow Perl!
Good god, did anyone proofread that first sentence? Its almost incomprehensible by normal, english-speaking humans.
Why didn't they use Catalyst? http://catalyst.perl.org/
I am going to create "PHP off the Rails" for developers of PHP websites. PHP developers will need no training, as most of them are off the rails already!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Take two of the weirdest looking syntaxes and fuse them together. Life time employment.
So... is this trying to combine the slowness and unscaleability of Ruby on Rails with the unreadability of Perl?
This is proof that there is a conspiracy to make up absurd programming shenanigans to sell overpriced door stoppers! Coming soon...
...at a bookstore near you to burn a hole in your wallet!
"Perl on Rails for Dummies"
"Perl on Rails for Idiots"
"Perl on Rails Bible"
"Perl on Rails in 24 Hours"
"Perl on Rails in a Nutshell"
"Perl on Rails: The Missing Manual"
This'll be UK-only; probably licensed under the BBCPL, which is like the GPL, but only for people in England, Scotland, Wales, and N. Ireland.
Whatever.
As long as it somehow involves more and better Dr. Who reruns, I'm happy.
What? Their website? I want Dr. Who reruns on that, then. The ones with the curly haired guy.
Juln
With all that the perl community sees in terms of mockery, did you REALLY need to add "powers the BBC iPlayer" to it?
Ice Cream has no bones.
Should have preferred Python or Parrot. I mean c'mon. nudge nudge know what I mean... She's a goer.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
... my beauty" - Bernard Shaw to a woman who wrote to him that she wanted to have children with him - "think of the child with your brains and my beauty."
There... thank me later
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. Web development is really Ruby supported on the back of Rails."
The developer gave a superior smile before replying, "What is Rails standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's Rails all the way down!"
Then in Soviet Russia, we can read about rails on slashdot.
Infuriate left and right
The obvious name is, at the time I write this, still available.
Inventor of the LOLbalrog meme.
how about "Perl on a Pogo Stick"?
Domain ID:D106018335-LROR Domain Name:PERLONRAILS.ORG Created On:04-Apr-2005 20:19:16 UTC Last Updated On:15-Oct-2007 18:37:19 UTC Expiration Date:04-Apr-2008 20:19:16 UTC Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com, Inc. (R91-LROR) Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED Status:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED Registrant ID:GODA-011071713 Registrant Name:Marcus Adair Registrant Street1:4111 N Drinkwater Blvd Registrant Street2:C101 Registrant Street3: Registrant City:Scottsdale Registrant State/Province:Arizona Registrant Postal Code:85251 Registrant Country:US Registrant Phone:+1.6027514978 Registrant Phone Ext.: Registrant FAX: Registrant FAX Ext.: Registrant Email:gcomnz@gmail.com Admin ID:GODA-211071713 Admin Name:Marcus Adair Admin Street1:4111 N Drinkwater Blvd Admin Street2:C101 Admin Street3: Admin City:Scottsdale Admin State/Province:Arizona Admin Postal Code:85251 Admin Country:US Admin Phone:+1.6027514978 Admin Phone Ext.: Admin FAX: Admin FAX Ext.: Admin Email:gcomnz@gmail.com Tech ID:GODA-111071713 Tech Name:Marcus Adair Tech Street1:4111 N Drinkwater Blvd Tech Street2:C101 Tech Street3: Tech City:Scottsdale Tech State/Province:Arizona Tech Postal Code:85251 Tech Country:US Tech Phone:+1.6027514978 Tech Phone Ext.: Tech FAX: Tech FAX Ext.: Tech Email:gcomnz@gmail.com Name Server:NS15.DOMAINCONTROL.COM Name Server:NS16.DOMAINCONTROL.COM Name Server: Name Server: Name Server: Name Server: Name Server: Name Server: Name Server: Name Server: Name Server: Name Server: Name Server:
This is just word-inflation. in the same way that children nowadays "need" a chocolate bar.
In business, the best way to see if someone really "needs" something is to see how much hassle they're willing to suffer to get it. For example, if they need a $1000 product, then I'd need a 20 page justification. If they need to attend a conference in 'Vegas, I need them to work weekends to catch-up the time etc. You get the idea.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Free to use for those who have actually paid for it.
Between Larry Wall (Christian) and Ruby (Mormon)? How can I trust a language from someone who can't think logically? Seriously. Would you trust anyone who believes in Santa Claus past age 21?
Compromise is overrated. Python has an atheist founder.
But how is this substantially different from say Mason (http://masonhq.com)? I understood the Ruby-on-Rails thing is just a framework to get ruby to work with sites; afaik Mason is pretty much the same thing (I have worked with a site that used it in place of CSS stuff in the late 90's, and I know that large sites also use it, like ebay and amazon. it's great for dynamic content generated through perl scripts to be published).
FreeBSD for the impatient.
When I first read the title I thought this was about a typo in some BBC article calling ruby on rails "perl on rails" and the ruby zealots were bitching, so I think this is a good outcome .
In retaliation, the Python community has now released 'Python on Maglev'.
:-)
Those 'rail' thingies are just so old fashioned.
While you might levy other criticisms against Rails, performance is not one that sticks. Scaling a Rails app is like scaling any other Web app framework. I'm consistently amazed that people go on with the Rails is not scalable mantra, yet they have never tried to scale a Rails app, or probably any Web app for that matter. Scalability problems generally occur at the database level anyway, which affects all Web frameworks equally.
Bottom line is trying to replicate Rails in Perl instead of figuring out how to scale Rails for your particular app smacks of not invented here syndrome, general cluelessness, and going around a horse's ass to get to its nose.
Ruby, I told you not to take your love to town.
Table-ized A.I.
Yes, combined with the intuitiveness of Cockney slang.
Tired of Perl being like a jam on the frog? If Perl's your china, you can crank out a wind and kite all Jack Jones. You'd have to be bacon to use Ruby.
I just don't see the point of putting a trainwreck on rails.
Article is published on Daily WTF...
For Perl, there is mod_perl, Ruby runs on Fast CGI. Now I am not the biggest Perl fan, but I would still take it over any Fast CGI application any day.
I know there is Mongrel now, but even the creators don't seem to trust it enough to let it run stand-alone and recommend you run it behind an Apache proxy. Not something I can imagine the BBC - or anyone with a large web farm - wanting to live with.
This seems as good a place as any to let interested people know about the 2007 Catalyst Advent Calendar. 24 days of how to work with catalyst. This year things are getting pretty sophisticated, with the first two entries dealing with Catalyst/YUI integration, including how to build a CRUD app with catalyst and YUI.
Never mind the merits of perl or ruby, the question inquiring minds in the UK want to ask is, how can we stop spending money on this project? We are not interested in funding the BBC to invent new programming methods, languages or anything else. We do not want to be forced to fund magazines and various news channels we do not watch, and appalling non-stop comedy channels that make our toes curl, and iplayers that don't work with our computers....and so on and so on!
How do we stop this train and get off?
And still be legally authorized to watch TV we do want to watch?
I know Python, would like to learn Perl, and don't and won't learn Ruby. Ruby fills the same niche as Python, but I like Python's language and documentation more. When I heard about what Catalyst had to offer developers over Rails, my desire (small as it was) to learn Ruby just got the nails in its coffin. I heard a really interesting podcast on FLOSS Monthly with Jay Shirley, a Catalyst proponent.
(Side note: The page I link to actually uses the word 'evangelist'. I just looked up the meaning of 'evangelist' for curiosity's sake, and it means, in Latin, a person who brings the word of God. Notice that the word contains 'angel'. In this light, using 'evangelist' to describe a proponent of anything not considered holy is sacrilege. If this isn't bothersome to you, then this note simply doesn't concern you :).)
- The code has not been released - so all the discussion is a bit void
- The reasons for it's development seem to be based on misunderstandings and 'white listing' of allowed modules (plus only Perl 5.6 allowed)
- It looks like Siemens, which in some way administers BBC working environment, is very reluctant to white list new CPAN modules - so the BBC developers reinvent on a grand scale.
If someone knows someone from Siemens involved in the whitelisting process - then please ask him why it is so slow and ask how the Perl community could help them to make it faster.The Horror... The Horror!!
s/normal/short-attention-span/g
s/english/american/g
Sufficiently terse?
Great, a bunch of lazy-ass /.ers repeatedly quoting a line that's correctly ranked a Score:0 post because it contradicts TFA.
TFA by the BBC guy says: "For applications that run internally we use Ruby on Rail. [sic]"
=S
Nice trolling.
It doesn't invalidate the argument of whether you should use a single language or several, and it doesn't make that argument less interesting. It's a discussion forum is it not? Discussions meander and evolve. Get over it.
In person, you wouldn't walk up to 2 people having a discussion and interupt to call them lazy-ass (or if you would you're a jerk that probably has no friends). Have some manners online too. It's not too much to ask.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer