Perl e-commerce?

Peter Edwards peter at dragonstaff.co.uk
Wed Sep 14 12:36:23 BST 2011


On 14 September 2011 12:20, Mallory van Achterberg <stommepoes at stommepoes.nl
> wrote:

> My question isn't because I'm personally looking for a shopping
> cart to use myself, or for a client (at least, not yet). My question
> is because, I see it as another reason web developers don't even
> consider Perl for these things. Which makes no sense to me.
>

Imagine a graphic designer who designs sites for customers and can cope with
FTPing some PHP files to a server and hacking a bit on the code - but not
much more.
Probably doesn't know how to use ssh or Unix shell commands.

That's why PHP is used, the barrier to entry is low enough for them to be
able to do a site on their own, and I would guess the majority of small
e-commerce sites are written by such people.

Another case to imagine is you do a shop for your client and then suddenly
they want to change to a different payment provider. Or start offering some
complicated coupon and rebate scheme for good customers. An existing large
and popular cart product probably has a plugin they pick up off the web and
stick on to do it with little or no coding. No coding == no cost of testing.
They charge the customer £200 and it's straight profit. If you had to spend
half a day hacking on Perl code to do it, it's cost you more money and
you'll have an irate client when their customers start hitting the bugs
(which will inevitably be there to start with).


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