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Perl Programming Software IT Technology Apache

mod_perl 2.0.0 Released 165

Posted by CowboyNeal from the rubbish-listers dept.
JamesD_UK writes "mod_perl 2.0.0 has been officially released into CPAN. Enhancements over mod_perl 1 include threads support and a perl interface to the Apache Portable Runtime. More details on the release can be found on CPAN."
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mod_perl 2.0.0 Released More

mod_perl 2.0.0 Released

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  • Catchup? (Score:1, Funny)

    by nighty5 ( 615965 )
    Beware mod_perl 2.0.0.

    Perl is already up to 6.0 (almost) - best wait for mod_perl 6.0 to be released.

    Nothing to see here, move along!

  • Funny... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Metteyya ( 790458 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @09:50AM (#12598568)
    Almost all of the comments criticizing Perl have been modded "Troll". Slashdot authors getting touchy?

    • Re:Funny... (Score:3, Funny)

      by imsabbel ( 611519 )
      i guess the mods have just proven your point....
    • They are just as much trolls as posts replying to a Gnome article with C flames would be, or C++ flames in response to a KDE article. The tool is not about the lanugage. mod_perl has a great deal going for it as a Web tool. If you don't like Perl, then fine, but that's off topic with respect to mod_perl itself.

    • Re:Funny... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Almost all of the comments criticizing Perl have been modded "Troll".

      Maybe because this is a story about a new level release of a popular Perl module used extensively in Apache. Not a story about whether Perl is better or worse than <insert_language_here>.

    • Re:Funny... (Score:4, Informative)

      by moof1138 ( 215921 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @01:28PM (#12599664)
      Here is the list of the top level comments prior to yours that were modded down:
      1) Never used it. What's the big deal?
      2) FP
      3) dead language.
      4) offshoring myths
      5) if the server is running it the slashdot effect will kill it.
      6) Is there anyone left who hasn't switched to Ruby or Python?
      7) Who still uses Perl for web stuff?

      All were either totally OT, or obvious language-war trolls, save #1 which was wasn't a critical post.

      AFAICT it looks like the moderation system is working quite well.

  • Perl a dead language? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 21, 2005 @09:52AM (#12598575)
    I do not understand how anyone can suggest that PERL is a dead language. It is still one of the most powerful text processing languages out there, with the extensibility that allows it to do everything from performing network activities to CGI. Although CGI is in its decline, it is still used plenty.

    Theres that and the fact that PERL is just a really fun language, very easy, and extremely free-flowing, which I personally think is a good thing.

    • Re:Perl a dead language? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by suso ( 153703 ) *
      Just like a natural language. A language is only dead when its no longer developed or used natively. A computer language should fit a simular definition. Thus, I would say it will be a LONG time before Perl fits that definition.

    • Is an elephant bigger or a girafe taller? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by systems ( 764012 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @10:47AM (#12598769)
      It's not that Perl is good or bad by itself, the question is more like, you still that Perl is still good/better in comparision to Ruby, Tcl, Python, Haskell, OCaml, Mozart/Oz and others more.

      I do realize, that sometimes comparing two languages is more like asking, is an elephant bigger or a girafe taller?

      But honestly, if you are still to start learning would you still have picked Perl.

      I picked Tcl and I have my reasons. (Tcl/Tk, Sqlite, event driven programming and OpenAcs). And my second choice would be ruby, I strongly like the OOP paradigm and as far as I know Ruby got better support for this paradigm, I'll probably learn ruby next, I believe one should learn a new language every now and then (it's a common advice, I didn't come up with it).

      Supporting old system is good enough reason to learn Perl, but beside taking advantage of availbe libraries (and this is a HUGE good reason) I dont see any other reason to get excited over Perl.
      • Of course Perl isn't better than OCaml. But it has a larger developer base and a somewhat bigger collection of useful libraries. There are other languages, in turn, which are even more whizz-bang than OCaml and have yet smaller developer communities.

        If we were starting from scratch and picking things on technical merit would we really use Unix and C?

    • Re:Perl a dead language? NOT (Score:5, Interesting)

      by fanatic ( 86657 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @10:55AM (#12598805)
      I work doing router and server admin.

      The shortest path between "need" and "have" is usually a perl script. CPAN alone puts perl above anything else I know of.

    • CGI is absolutely in decline but Mason [masonhq.com] is bigger than ever. The developer of Mason now works for Amazon.com (built on Mason) now.
    • Perl had a niche before CGI. It was a general language for throwaway programs and system scripts. You could write simple, small apps and servers in it, by using CPAN to do 90% of the work for you. This also resulted in clean, readable code (the mess being hidden in the modules). My email is downloaded off pop3 and inserted into maildirs by a perl script I designed. It's short and simple, despite using a boatload of tricks to avoid memory leaks and lockups no matter what. It just runs, so I can ignore it.

      I
    • Although CGI is in its decline, it is still used plenty.

      Using this argument makes little sense becasue CGI is quite irrelevant today. It is the kind of back-handed comment that people use about languages like COBOL.

      The "death of CGI" rather than the fact it is still twitching is the real argument to use mod_perl over many of the alternatives. mod_perl is probably the most mature of all the non-CGI web application platforms--it pre-dates everything except perhaps PHP (which looks to have emerged at arou

  • mod_parrot (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hey ( 83763 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @09:54AM (#12598587) Journal
    Bah, mod_parrot is where its at.
    http://www.smashing.org/mod_parrot/ [smashing.org]
    I program my web application in Parrot.
  • Has anybody use mod_perl on Windows?
    I'd be interesting to here how it went for you.
    • mod_perl has worked under Windows for many years. No need to compile any of it yourself either, as many people provide pre-compiled binaries for you (hint: google is your friend).

      Specifically, I can speak for the binary copy of Apache 1.3 found on apache.org, and ActiveState's perl port of 5.6. They both work good together, and under Windows 2000 all the major features seem to work fine. Obviously, some of the unix-isms that don't exist under Win32 must be worked around (shared memory? proper forking? p
    • I used to maintain the binary distribution of Apache+mod_perl for Windows. It was a right pain in the ass, and core-dumped all the time, and was fully serialized. But I understand it's much better now that Apache 2 is out there.

    • Re:mod_perl on Windows (Score:3, Informative)

      by jjn1056 ( 85209 )
      I build a REST interface for an audio generation system at "http://mp3.motorola.com.cn:8080/composer" which is mod_perl2 on windows server 2003 and perl 5.8.6. It just works, not trouble.

  • threads support (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Out of curiosity, is this still the same threading model that's existed in Perl for some time? Or is it revamped? Because if it hasn't been updated, well, it's pretty much useless. I've done threading in perl, and every time you spawn a thread, a whole new interpreter is spawned. On top of this, there are many limitations on sharing data between threads (you can't share objects, for one thing).

    It might as well be called forking, to be honest, because it doesn't really qualify as threading.

  • General note: what is it? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 21, 2005 @10:06AM (#12598638)
    For people who are wondering what mod_perl is exactly: it's a way of integrating perl into Apache's webserver. I think the main advantage is that you don't have the overhead of firing up perl for each cgi-type request. The main gotchas, for the developers point of view, involve a little perl enviornment staying alive, when a perl script starts, runs, and stops, it cleans up after itself, but when it 'stays alive' inside apache, you have to make sure it's not accumulating too much memory cruft, that you're closing handles, etc etc.

    This is what I know mostly by reputation, rather than direct experience, experts please feel free to correct me

    --

    #perl -e '$??s:;s:s;;$?::s;;=]=>%-{-|}&|`{;; y; -/:-@[-`{-};`-{/" -;;s;;$_;see'

  • API space rename hurt (Score:3, Interesting)

    by henry.thorpe ( 149742 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @10:23AM (#12598696) Homepage
    I'd been happily using mod_perl2 since 1.99r12 or so. Then, right before the release of 2.0, between 2.0r3 and 2.0r5, the namespace changed http://perl.apache.org/docs/2.0/rename.html [apache.org]. I realize that there are good reasons for doing this (http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=111135037100002&r =1&w=2 [theaimsgroup.com]), but it was still pretty painful if you hadn't had some prior warning. In particular, the FreeBSD ports tree is still feeling some pain. Guess I just got lazy with all the dependencies handled in the ports tree.

    But, now we have to flash-cut our production systems, unless someone knows how to changes things to work under both namespaces...

    • Re:API space rename hurt (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I'd been happily using mod_perl2 since 1.99r12 or so.

      But, now we have to flash-cut our production systems

      Well that's what you get for using a beta release on production systems.

    • unless someone knows how to changes things to work under both namespaces...

      Couldn't you make each use of the Apache API conditional upon $ENV{MOD_PERL_API_VERSION}?

  • CGI (Score:5, Informative)

    by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 ) <RealityMaster101@nOSPAm.gmail.com> on Saturday May 21, 2005 @10:42AM (#12598761) Homepage Journal
    Everyone bitchin' that "CGI is dead" should broaden their horizons a bit. CGI may be stupid and dead, but Perl is used in a lot of different ways. It's still one the best languages for getting good work done.

    For example, Mason [masonhq.com] is a pretty good tool for doing Perl-based web components.

    So bitch about CGI if you wish, but that's not what Perl is for.

    • Funny you mention Mason...Mason has not officially supported Apache 2 since mod_perl was not 2.0. Mason's position was that since there was no official mod_perl for Apache 2, they couldn't release an official Mason for Apache 2.

      Yes, you could make it work but the documentation was spread over different people's home pages and it was certainly presented as more of a hacker's hobby than a professional development environment (unlike Mason for Apache 1.3.x).

      • Mason attempts (with quite a bit of success) to be a stable, professional environment.

        Look at what happened with the Great Namespace Change. You can't track that kind of thing and keep your rep.

        Wait-and-release is sometimes a good policy.

        • Sorry if I was unclear...I wasn't criticizing Mason at all, just pointing out the parent's irony of pointing to Mason as a great example of what can be done with perl CGI...when in fact, Mason hasn't supported Apache 2 so far. I agree that they've had a good reason not to support it, given the lack of a mod_perl for Apache2.
      • Mason has officially supported mod_perl 2 since version 1.27 (http://www.masonhq.com/code/history.html#v1.27 [masonhq.com]). Support for the namespace changes won't be implemented until mod_perl 2 is final (which it seems to be now), so I suppose that would be a lack of official support. However, it sounds like you were referring to pre-1.27 when Beau Cox released his special handler for mod_perl 2.
    • Why does everyone link CGI and perl like they were the same.

      I write my CGI apps in bash. Yes, bash. Pipelines are fun and nearly unparalleled in any language for their power and flexibility, and I have a vast function library in the filesystem. Obviously this is neither secure nor performant, but that's the quick and dirty start.

      When it needs to get more complex, I'll put it in perl either as mason components or a FastCGI. More FastCGI, less mason these days. Some of my stuff works better in python b

    • CGI may be stupid and dead...

      I think you need to readup on what the CGI actually is [uiuc.edu].

      Your statement is as wrong as if you'd said that HTTP was dead when IE claimed the browser market.

      PHP, ASP, Perl, Bash - and many other languages - can use the CGI to talk to web clients over HTTP.

      I think what you were trying to say is that CGI scripting in Perl is stupid and dead. I'd even disagree with that to a degree, but that's probabl;y closer to what you meant.

      cLive ;-)

      • I agree with your feelings, but I think the feeling that "CGI is Dead" which seems to be bandied about is more a feeling that .Net, and Java (servlets/applets) are the "wave of the current and future" ... not that I neccesarily agree.

        I think that too many people, from C*Os to programmers tend to look at technology as a series of shiny things and assume that each new one is the be all and end all of creation (instead of just a tool with its own set of pros and cons in every situation).

        'Course enough are al

  • What defines dying? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by malverian ( 563649 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @11:14AM (#12598912) Homepage
    Perl still has a very active community with some very incredible and dedicated hackers. The main thing that keeps me coming back to Perl for personal projects is the fact that it's such a FUN language to program in. I can think of many benefits to using Python and PHP in a work environment, but no matter how long I work with other languages, I always come running back to Perl when I'm in the mood for some highly caffeinated drinks and a late night of hacking. Say what you will about Python or PHP, but you probably can't say either is fun or enlightening to use. I've found that Larry Wall is a very unique individual, and a lot of that is pervayed through the style of his programming language. In Perl I can say (figuratively).. "Go fetch the paper!" or "Can you get the paper?" and both of them work. While that might be a readability nightmare, it lets you be very creative with your code. And to some people, being creative is a nice release after the regimented, controlled environment we deal with in the workplace.

    • Is it dying? It it the end of fun? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rduke15 ( 721841 ) <rduke15.gmail@com> on Saturday May 21, 2005 @12:49PM (#12599463)
      it's such a FUN language to program in

      Exactly. But I guess that is what so many don't like. As Larry Wall said:
      "In trying to make programming predictable, computer scientists have mostly succeeded in making it boring"
      -- Larry Wall, interview in The Perl Journal, vol. 1 issue 1.

      I gess some prefer programming to be boring.

      I don't.
      • There's an old Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times". There was a copy of that somewhere in the kernel file (a.k.a. System file) for MacOS 7 that said "may you code in interesting times".

        Languages are tools. I prefer mine to be predictable, allowing the real wizardry to be in what you do with them, not with knowing how it deals with some particular edge condition.
    • I find python more fun, because it looks cleaner. It's got more structure. I'm a mathematician and my aesthetics may not be "normal", but to me something near-geometric is preferrable to the "tangle" I seem to get when programming perl. As far as perl dying is concerned, how is that community going? Is it shrinking? Is it aging in almost real time? If either of those are true, perl is dying.
      • One of Perl's benefits is that it doesn't *force* structure. It also doesn't force lack of structure, though. If your code looks sloppy in Perl - or any other language - then you're a sloppy programmer, and it's your own fault.

        When I hear forced structure, I generally think of Fortran. I dislike Fortran. :)

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @12:18PM (#12599295)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Neat.

  • merits of perl, the future of parrot (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gregorlowski ( 884938 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @05:18PM (#12600925)
    Perl has a lot going for it. mod_perl and html::mason (used by /. and apache) together are a much more maintainable solution to large web apps than PHP, IMO. I had to maintain some really ugly old PHP code at my old job. Any language can get ugly if the coding style is ugly, but properly written html::mason does a lot more to separate Model, View, and Controller than any PHP solution I've seen.

    I did a lot of perl programming back in the day. Although I still like it a lot (I think the DBI is one of the best database libraries out there), I do find myself working more and more in both python and ruby for rapid development.

    If you love perl but sometimes get a headache from staring at long lines of code with lots of sigils, braces, and parentheses, take a look at ruby. From what I've seen of Perl6 so far, it will also clean up some syntax while retaining neat perlish tricks and adding a lot of advanced programming language features.

    I have high hopes for the parrot project too. Maybe one day we'll all be able to write parts of our apps in ruby, python, perl6, ponie, and integrate them together on a common VM platform. I think this would be an incredible step for open source software development! Still, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for this... it looks like this scripting nirvana is still pretty far off.
    • Actually, parrot is really coming along nicely it looks like. People are really starting to work on compilers to target parrot now too. It WILL be a scripting nirvana, just wait and see. In fact, don't wait, get involved; start hacking one whichever project you're interested it!

  • Powerful (Score:2, Informative)

    by sallgeud ( 12337 )
    At my previous job we used mod_perl (1 and 2[beta]). The excellent part about mod_perl is that it allows you to completely control Apache in every manner possible.

    There are excellent performance benefits in writing Apache handlers... and mod_perl simply allows them to be written in perl.

    The last application I developed handled multi-millions of records per day without flinching. There were dozens of users and several extremely complex equations and correlations done...

    In the end, it outperformed the o

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