Perl equivalents of MS' ASP.NET2/3

[Ted]

I have been using Perl, but I also use C++ and Java, I know VB, and I
am looking at C#. I have MS' Visual Studio 2005. As some of you may
know, version 3 of .NET was just recently released.

There is no doubt that .NET is an interesting and useful framework. I
see it as just another framework for developing applications, like
wxWidgets or Borland's VCL: just another library one might choose to
use. On first glance, though, it does seem impressive and well
designed to reduce the amount of code one needs to write in order to
implement a given application.

I am wondering, though, if there is a comparable library or application
framework for Perl. I have Apache and Perl installed on Windows XP
(along with a number of other servers, including application servers
and database servers). My latest application, deployed just a couple
weeks ago, was a mix of Perl and SQL.

If there is something available for Perl that is comparable to .NET, I
am most interested in examining those components corresponding to
ADO.NET (I MUST be able to work easily with MySQL, PostgreSQL and MS
SQL Server), usual form objects/classes corresponding to common HTML
components (list boxes/comboboxes, edit controls, tables, &c.) and
layout managers (as available in Java and .NET 2). I did a search on
Perl and ASP, but the signal to noise ratio was too small to be useful,
and it is even worse when .NET is added to the search.

Thanks

Ted

 

[John Bokma]

If there is something available for Perl that is comparable to .NET, I
am most interested in examining those components corresponding to
ADO.NET (I MUST be able to work easily with MySQL, PostgreSQL and MS
SQL Server),

I don't know ADO.NET, so this might be silly, but DBI does work for me
very well, used it with MS SQL, MySQL, etc.

usual form objects/classes corresponding to common HTML
components (list boxes/comboboxes, edit controls, tables, &c.) and
layout managers (as available in Java and .NET 2). I did a search on
Perl and ASP, but the signal to noise ratio was too small to be useful,
and it is even worse when .NET is added to the search.

If you're looking for perl web frameworks:

http://www.google.com/search?q=perl web frameworks

Apache has a ASP (which is a framework) + Perl solution:
http://www.google.com/search?q=apache asp perl

 

[Ben Morrow]

If there is something available for Perl that is comparable to .NET, I
am most interested in examining those components corresponding to
ADO.NET (I MUST be able to work easily with MySQL, PostgreSQL and MS
SQL Server),

perldoc -q sql

usual form objects/classes corresponding to common HTML
components (list boxes/comboboxes, edit controls, tables, &c.) and
layout managers (as available in Java and .NET 2).

Hmmm... here the FAQ seems to fall down. The magic keyword is 'tk',
which dates the entry somewhat. What do people think of this go at a new
one? Have I missed anything important?

Ben

=head2 How can I write a GUI in Perl?

There are a number of modules which let you write GUIs in Perl. Most
GUI toolkits have a perl interface; an incomplete list follows.

=over 4

=item Tk

This works under Unix and Windows, and the current version doesn't
look half as bad under Windows as it used to. Some of the gui elements
still don't 'feel' quite right, though. The interface is very natural
and 'perlish', making it easy to use in small scripts that just need a
minimal gui. It hasn't been updated in a while.

=item Wx

This is a Perl binding for the cross-platform wxWidgets toolkit
L<http://www.wxwidgets.org>. It works under Unix, Win32 and Mac OS X,
using native widgets (Gtk under Unix). The interface follows the C++
interface closely, but the documentation is a little sparse for someone
who doesn't know the library, mostly just referring you to the C++
documentation.

=item Gtk and Gtk2

These are Perl bindings for the Gtk toolkit L<http://www.gtk.org>. The
interface changed significantly between versions 1 and 2 so they have
separate Perl modules. It runs under Unix, Win32 and Mac OS X (currently
it requires an X server on Mac OS, but a 'native' port is underway), and
the widgets look the same on every plaform: i.e., they don't match the
native widgets. As with Wx, the Perl bindings follow the C API closely,
and the documentation requires you to read the C documentation to
understand it.

=item Win32::GUI

This provides access to most of the Win32 GUI widgets from Perl.
Obviously, it only runs under Win32, and uses native widgets. The Perl
interface doesn't really follow the C interface: it's been made more
Perlish.

=item CamelBones

CamelBones L<http://camelbones.sourceforge.net> is a Perl interface to
Mac OS X's Cocoa GUI toolkit, and as such can be used to produce native
GUIs on Mac OS X. It's not on CPAN, as it requires frameworks that
CPAN.pm doesn't know how to install, but installation is via the
standard OSX package installer. The Perl API is, again, very close to
the ObjC API it's wrapping, and the documentation just tells you how to
translate from one to the other.

=back

 

[Mumia W. (reading news)]

If there is something available for Perl that is comparable to .NET [...]

Hmmm... here the FAQ seems to fall down. The magic keyword is 'tk',
which dates the entry somewhat. What do people think of this go at a new
one? Have I missed anything important?

Ben

Tk is a GUI Toolkit--not a full application framework--or so I've heard.

..NET (which I've never used) provides much more than a GUI.