So, among the Perl’s-Not-Dead crowd, there seems to be a pretty big buzz surrounding Catalyst, a web application framework that I’ve known about for a while. I first discovered it about two years ago while on one of my “I need to get out of PHP land” trips. I wasn’t very impressed with it then, so I decided to take another look today.
At first glance, their site looks nice and snazzy and web-frameworkish. Upon closer inspection, I want to rip my eyes out. The left column has a few statements that really punched my goat.
Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Thanks. You think I’m stupid. Wouldn’t, “Keep It Sublimely Simple,” have come across better?
Don’t Repeat Yourself.
I don’t know of a web framework that doesn’t say this, so no surprises. But…
There Is More Than One Way To Do It.
Am I the only one that thinks those contradict each other? If you don’t like the way something is done, then there’s another way to do it, thus introducing an element of repetition in to the equation.
*Sigh* I just don’t have the fight in me today.
Then I looked at the documentation and my head exploded. Note that the tutorial chapters are completely out of order. I’ll not bring up the fact that the CPAN color scheme is like staring at the sun for too long, so when I click on the tutorial overview, I’m greeted with a table of contents and then a *real* table of contents.
I’ve had enough. CPAN might be Perl’s strongest selling point, but to me, the I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-documentation attitude will forever keep me from using it. Not that Perl has much longer to live anyway. :P
Now, I’m going to go look at Django’s docs to be reminded of how things can be presented decently.