Outgrowing Mason

It's a good thing Terri's coming home tomorrow. I don't think my body can take many more of these late nights. (I.e., my wife is out of town for a conference, so I pulled late nights this week, since I don't when she's home. :)

Background: The latest idea for Contentment, which is the real working idea originally came by basically adding some customizations built with HTML::Mason. Mason is a nifty mini-CMS/embedded-Perl templating system. It's hard to classify because it has a really wide mix of features. It serves files, it provides a layered virtual file system, it provides a templating engine, it provides some fancy features for wrapping content with other content via "autohandlers" and filtering, etc. To paraphrase Strong Bad, "It beats the pants off that ol' washed up the PHP I used to use."

So, I extended it. Initially, I added an indexer and a template system. Well, I had to use some odd tricks to get that to work, but I think Mason still did it pretty well. I added a system for handling contextual and session information. I brought SPOPS into the picture to help out with the database end of things (and then I hacked that because the so-called last S=Security is S=Stupid Security, at least for my needs.) I've added a fancy transformation system, which I've revamped to make it even better. I've added a fancy filtering system to be applied after transformations (which should go through the same refactoring that transformations did). The latest addition is the VFS system. I've written a new project, File::System to handle the new needs I have for URL mapping and the soon to come URL to database record mapping I have in mind.

What does this all add up to? I'm seriously abusing Mason at this point. I've taken my good ol' friend Mason and ripped his guts out, strung them around the room, and replaced parts with my own PVC. Okay, that's disgusting. Man, I go weird at 4am...I should sleep.

Basically, I'm going to have to evaluate things more, but I think that I've already spotted the next set of updates. Mason is going to say, "Sayonara." Or at least, partially. It's still going to be a valuable part of the system, but it won't be the front end anymore, I think.

Anyway, I'm never satisfied. I don't know who said it, but in the "Camel Book" by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and (originally) Randall Schwatz (though, he's since been gypped, I understand), the three virtues of programming are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. I think a fourth one to add to the list is Discontent.

Yes, very punny. Good night.