building a e-commerce site

[stig]

hi
i am going to be part of building a e-commerce website, for this we
think that perl might be the choice of language, mainly because we have
experience from it. we have build smaller e-commerce sites, but this
will be considerably larger.

where should i begin to look to get answers to the following questions?
1. modeling techniques, code re-use.
2. presentation layer (html), how to build it fast and good, and then
how to connect it well to the underlaying perl-scripts?
3. is perl a good choice at all, if not, why and what should we look for?


also, are there any open-source web-shops that one can begin from, and
where can they be found?

any particular book recommended?

thanks in advance
stig

 

[Gregory Toomey]

It was a dark and stormy night, and stig managed to scribble:

hi
i am going to be part of building a e-commerce website, for this we
think that perl might be the choice of language, mainly because we have
experience from it. we have build smaller e-commerce sites, but this
will be considerably larger.

where should i begin to look to get answers to the following questions?
1. modeling techniques, code re-use.
2. presentation layer (html), how to build it fast and good, and then
how to connect it well to the underlaying perl-scripts?
3. is perl a good choice at all, if not, why and what should we look for?

See http://oscommerce.com/ for an open source PHP solution.

gtoomey

 

[Peter Cooper]

<snip>

where should i begin to look to get answers to the following questions?
1. modeling techniques, code re-use.
2. presentation layer (html), how to build it fast and good, and then
how to connect it well to the underlaying perl-scripts?

You didn't ask this, but I have found it to be, perhaps, even more important
than good Perl programming.

Good SQL programming, database design, and database management.

You claim this is going to be 'considerably larger' than what you've done
before, so a database is probably going to be pretty crucial. Of course, you
might all be database experts, in which case you'll be fine.. but if you're
not, I'd devote more energy to the database than to your Perl programming at
this early stage.

3. is perl a good choice at all, if not, why and what should we look for?

Amazon uses Perl. That doesn't mean it's the best choice, but it's a good
one. I'd steer clear of PHP unless you're truly in tune with it. PHP's
natural style seems to encourage people to tie together logic and
presentation, which is "bad."

You might also consider looking at using XML-RPC or Soap based RPC systems
for keeping your presentation systems and logic systems separate. This can
also help a lot with modelling and code reuse, since if you have a solid
'backend' accessible through, say, XML-RPC, it's possibly to build multiple
clients, trash existing clients, and do whatever you like.. keeping
presentation and logic truly separate.

Good luck,
Pete

 

[Eric J. Roode]

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hi
i am going to be part of building a e-commerce website, for this we
think that perl might be the choice of language, mainly because we have
experience from it. we have build smaller e-commerce sites, but this
will be considerably larger.

where should i begin to look to get answers to the following questions?
1. modeling techniques, code re-use.
2. presentation layer (html), how to build it fast and good, and then
how to connect it well to the underlaying perl-scripts?
3. is perl a good choice at all, if not, why and what should we look for?


also, are there any open-source web-shops that one can begin from, and
where can they be found?

any particular book recommended?

Perl is an outstanding choice.

And a crappy choice.

It depends on a lot of things. If your server is based on unix and
apache, if you have developers who are good with mod_perl or FastCGI,
then Perl is an excellent choice, one I would recommend without
hesitation.

If your server is IIS/Windows, if your developers are more comfortable
with Java or .NET, then Perl will likely not work out well for you.

If you're starting with a blank slate, Perl/Linux/Apache is probably a
better choice than anything else. But "it depends".

- --
Eric
$_ = reverse sort $ /. r , qw p ekca lre uJ reh
ts p , map $ _. $ " , qw e p h tona e and print

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