zoot

I’ve switched my blog from Mephisto to thoth .

I’m a huge fan of simplicity and really like the way this little blog engine works. Written using the Ramaze Ruby web application framework which I mentioned in my previous post, it outperforms Mephisto by a looooong shot! The admin interface is also integrated into the main site as contextual toolbar icons, unlike other blog engines, which have separate and often over-complicated admin interfaces. Sweet :-)

There are a few features which I’d like to see included in thoth, like modifying the post date, page categories and blog post categories. Fortunately thoth appears to be simple to extend through plugins, so I will be tweaking things in future. In the meantime, I will have to resort to manually changing the blog post times of my previous posts which were created while using Mephisto.

These frameworks are the new craze for rapidly developing database driven web sites. I’m particularly interested in Model View Controller (MVC) frameworks, which assist in separating process flow, data management and the final presentation. For information on web application frameworks visit the Wikipedia page on the topic.

I’m hunting for a suitable framework to use to build a new web based service. Amongst the current candidates, after pouring over countless options, are:

• Ramaze
• Merb
• CGI::Application

Some may ask why Ruby on Rails isn’t on this short list. Well, the answer is simple – it’s too bloated for my needs. Ramaze and Merb appear to be a lot more flexible. I neither wish to be dictated to, nor forced to rummage through an oversized project hierarchy to tweak my code. Of the two Ruby based frameworks, I’m drawn more to Ramaze, but have to understand what RESTful applications are before I ditch Merb. More on this later.

Now, for the Perl based CGI::Application framework. Well, I have programmed in Perl for years, my language of choice for getting things done, for web applications and practically everything else including system administration. Then, there’s the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) which is home to a plethora of Perl modules which gives one an incredible tool-set. This framework is very light and as with what I understand of Ramaze, doesn’t dictate as to how I should structure my projects.

The search isn’t over yet, even though I continue to gravitate towards Ramaze and CGI::Application.

I will report back with my final decision and hopefully some compelling reasons for the decision :-)

Blogging is something I’ve been threatening to do for some time. I’ve finally taken the plunge with this first post :-) It’s bound to take time before I find both the time to post regularly and to develop my own blogging style.

This evening I poked fun at a friend who mentioned that she was going to start her blog again. I said that she shouldn’t start again, given that a blog is a chronological log, or diary of one’s activities and thoughts. This being my 3rd edit of this post, I now realise how one might become dissatisfied with what one’s written, or the direction a blog has taken. Well, for a perfectionist like myself, this is going to be a challenge, haha. That being said, there are so many [blog] variations out there, some using blogs as a diaries, community portals and even as simple websites, so I’ll simply go with the flow and see what develops.

Anyway, at this point in time, the experiment will involve learning how to use Mephisto the blogging engine which powers this site and putting its features to good use. So far, I’ve selected an existing theme I like and have enabled Akismet to help prevent comment spam, from the outset.