Gentlemen, a call to arms!

[Simon Wilcox]

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006, Jonathan Rockway wrote:

> What "magic" are you having trouble with?  I find Catalyst a lot less
> magical than, say, Jifty or Rails.  In fact, I don't see any magic in
> Catalyst at all, but maybe I am too used to it to see it. :)

Catalyst::Helper::Controller::Scaffold
Catalyst::Example::InstantCRUD
Catalyst::Enzyme

All of these which are, or were, recommended in the wiki and various other
places are full of magic and attempt to do things like working out what
your forms should look like and other useful things.

These are all very well but when they break[1] you're stuffed.

I learned that the early and excitable evangelism for these new tools
resulted in burned fingers and non-working code for the people trying to
make use of them, i.e. me.

It's better now as these are maturing but I ended up having to rip out all
the magic and go back to first principles and code a lot of stuff by hand.

My conclusion is that these tools should be seen more like lazy driving
habits once you know how to drive than training wheels that will help you
to learn. And yes, I realise how mixed up that metaphor is :-)

Simon.
[1] FSVO Break meaning "doesn't do what I want"

-- 
"Bambleweeny 57 Submeson Brain"