CGI/UBB Perl Programming

FastFullBack

Hey folks,
With all the talk of 4th year projects and the like I've finally got my head down and started some research.
I'm starting to think along the lines of some form of message board/forum website.
Being doing some research and seen that alot of these are implemented using CGI and UBB perl programming.
Anyone know how difficult and/or complicated this is.
Any good web references to get some basic ideas and some scope on how big a task setting up a Forum would be?

Am I throwing myself in the deep end or is this project feasible?

Any help would be appreicated.

Thanks

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Kewell as Fcuk

mneylon

Most bulletin boards now use PHP - NOT Perl.

nahdoic

Originally posted by blacknight
Most bulletin boards now use PHP - NOT Perl.

and with good reason.

I personally wouldn't recommend to do a UBB for your 4th year project. You wouldn't even come close to matching the likes of vBulletin, or even the free ones like phpBB2. You would need a rather good team and quite a number of months if not years to get it up to scatch.

But if you're planning to do a web application, try to decide to do something a bit more specialised - find a business that needs something developed - or do a UBB with your own twist that is solving some of problem.

mneylon

Yes. If you ask around you'll probably find that there is a demand for something special

Zaltais

Originally posted by nahdoic
and with good reason.

What's the good reason?

mneylon

Speed

Zaltais

Not true.

Perl is just as fast as PHP (probably faster). The problem is CGI. When used in a mod_perl environment Perl is at the very very least equal in speed to PHP. Also the speed difference between Perl in a CGI environment and PHP can be decreased by using SpeedyCGI (aka PersistentPerl) or similar.

The problem is that most hosts don't support mod_perl, so it doesn't get used.

PHP can be used in a CGI type setup to, and I gaurantee you it is DOG slow.


Disclaimer: I'm a bit of a Perl zealot. It's not my intention to start a 'my choice of programming language is better than yours' type flame war.

davej

Yes what Zailtais says is fairly true. I think part of the problem is that Perl and CGI have become synonymous with each other and this has damaged Perl's reputation.

The other advantage that PHP has over Perl is that you can embed/mix code and html easily. I know there are embedded Perl projects out there but they don't have the publicity of php; people have moved on. PHP is a simple method for creating dynamic web pages, Perl is often too terse and esoteric for the newbie.

davej

nahdoic

I've developed web applications with perl and php. And I've left perl out to dry long, long ago.

The ease and speed of development with php in comparison to perl - there's just no contest from my own experience.

Yes perl and php are both dog slow as a cgi binary.

But php was designed for the web, perl was kinda ported over to work with the web. For web applications you can't beat php, all my own opinion of course.