Gentlemen, a call to arms!

[Ian Malpass]

Jonathan Rockway wrote:

> I agree that documentation isn't as good as it could be.  That's why I'm
> writing a book.

Huzzah!

> For now, I do recommend the tutorial; I found it to be quite helpful:
> 
> http://search.cpan.org/~jrockway/Task-Catalyst-Tutorial-0.02/lib/Catalyst/Manual/Tutorial.pod
> 
> (It's in my CPAN directory, but I just maintain the CPAN version.  The
> tutorial was written by Kennedy Clark.)

I'm fairly sure I went through that. But I think I got bored and wanted 
login sessions RIGHT NOW and so skipped bits :( I *did* say that the 
problems were probably my fault ;)

> Really, the helpers aren't wizards.  They're typing savers.  Every
> catalyst app has the same sort of layout, so the helpers set that up for
> you:

Mm, although as I recall it was the authentication and session plugin's 
helpers that produced a bunch of extra code I couldn't debug.

Part of the problem is, I think, that I don't have a clear grasp of 
where things are in a Catalyst app's directory tree, so I find myself 
bouncing back and forth between lots of files. If I actually worked 
through the tutorial (I did work through Mr Sergeant's tutorial, but 
that was mostly because it used my WebService::CIA module and I'm 
terribly vain like that) and/or read a book on the topic I'd probably 
have a better idea of what was where and why.

As I recall, I couldn't debug because the failure was somewhere down in 
the bowels of some package called by a package called by a plugin called 
by a different plugin called by Catalyst, and since I didn't have stack 
trace I had no idea where to start, and none of the helper-generated 
code seemed to fit the bill.

As I say, it's not Catalyst's fault per se, it's just that when I tried 
to do something in Catalyst it didn't work and when I tried in 
CGI::Application it just worked. I should probably try it again and then 
bother #catalyst.

Ian