[dancer-users] Why learn Dancer?

[Andrew Solomon]

Thanks for putting all these concepts in context Warren!

Andrew

On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 6:53 AM, Warren Young <warren at etr-usa.com> wrote:
> On 7/3/2014 10:07, Andrew Solomon wrote:
>>
>> Anyway, I'd like to
>> know peoples' views on whether this is a healthy approach to
>> developing maintainable web apps.
>
>
> Consider this complexity continuum:
>
>    CGI::* < mod_perl < Apache::ASP < Dancer < Catalyst < CMS
>
> This does not say that everything eventually becomes a CMS, or that
> everything is based on CGI or mod_perl at bottom.  It just ranks web
> frameworks by increasing complexity.  The more the web framework does for
> you out of the box, the greater the complexity, but also the more policy it
> tends to drag along with it.
>
> Web frameworks occupy a span along the continuum, not a single spot. Some
> spans are wider than others.  Rails, Django and Catalyst all roughly
> overlap, Mason+Poet roughly overlaps Dancer, etc.  I show Apache::ASP to the
> left of Dancer only because it isn't as big or complex as Dancer, but in
> reality, there's considerable overlap.  Drupal is so flexible a CMS that the
> leftward edge of its span overlaps Catalyst's space on the continuum.
>
> At the far left, you are given almost no tools, but you have ultimate
> freedom.
>
> The farther to the right you go, the more your end application needs to
> match the preconceived notions that went into the framework.
>
> Some people try to fight this.  They will build something other than a CMS
> on top of Drupal, or a non-MVC app on top of Catalyst, or a non-DBMS-backed
> app on top of Rails.  These are all signs that you should have started with
> something farther left on the continuum.
>
> You can make the opposite mistake, too.  If you're building a CMS on top of
> Dancer, you're probably reinventing many perfectly good wheels.
>
> Finding the right place along the continuum can be tricky.  When you choose
> Catalyst over Dancer, you are buying into a set of policies and assumptions.
> Catalyst assumes that MVC is a good design for your app, that you have a
> DBMS, that it makes sense to connect the DBMS directly to the web app, and
> that it makes sense to use the web framework's ORM to do that.  I chose
> Dancer over Catalyst because three of those four assumptions are untrue for
> my app.
>
> That is to say, I moved to the left until I stopped violating framework
> assumptions.  I went no farther left than I had to because I have no wish to
> build up my own framework from the stone knives and bearskins level of
> technology.
>
> Dancer is at an interesting position on the complexity continuum.  It is
> just to the left of the border where features start turning into policy and
> design.  The best reason to choose Dancer is when you are building something
> that isn't already designed and implemented.
>
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