Dev411 Blog

Whenever popular Perl sites are discussed, a number of large websites are mentioned with the usual suspects being Amazon, IMDB, LiveJournal, Slashdot and others. While this is a good list, what often doesn't get mentioned is the new Web 2.0 sites that Perl 5 is powering. Perl 5 web frameworks (such as Catalyst and Jifty), OO models (Moose) and other techniques (PAR) dramatically improve Perl for web development and large-scale projects making many complaints about the language irrelevant. These, when combined with CPAN, continue to make Perl 5 a very attractive language for new web apps.

Examples of Perl-powered Web 2.0 sites include del.icio.us, (which uses the Mason templating system / mini-framework), EditGrid (an AJAX-enhanced online spreadsheet running on the Catalyst framework) and Vox (a multi-user blogging site by Six Apart, maker of LiveJournal, MovableType and TypePad). Other sites include HiveMinder, IUseThis, and MighTyV. Of these six sites, four are running on the Catalyst framework. HiveMinder is built on the Jifty framework. Yahoo is even interested in developers with Perl/Catalyst skills along with C and Java for this Senior Software Engineering position (screenshot from jobs.perl.org). Screenshots and links of active sites are provided below.

del.icio.us Description: Social Bookmarking Perl Framework: Mason

EditGrid Description: Online Spreadsheets Perl Framework: Catalyst

HiveMinder Description: To Do Lists Perl Framework: Jifty

IUseThis Description: App Lists Perl Framework: Catalyst

MighTyV Description: TV/Radio Listings Perl Framework: Catalyst

Vox Description: Blogging site by Six Apart Perl Framework: Catalyst

These sites show that Perl 5 is alive and well as a language of choice for Web 2.0. Although Perl 5 is over 10 years old, the combination of new frameworks and techniques, combined with CPAN's 10,000+ modules, continue to make Perl an attractive choice. The key is to use make sure you are familiar with modern Perl programming techniques.