Sebastian Riedel about Perl and the Web

Mojolicious 4.0 released: Perl real-time web framework

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:29:00 +0200

It fills me with great joy to announce our classiest release yet, Mojolicious 4.0 (Top Hat).

This is the first major release for the newest member of our core team, please welcome Dr. Joel Berger, he was responsible for many of the new features. It has only been 11 months since our 3.0 release and the new development process is working out very well for us so far. The community keeps growing fast, we’ve now been starred almost 900 times on GitHub and the IRC channel regularly reaches more than 150 visitors, thanks everyone!

While the main focus of this release has been on the removal of legacy APIs, there are also quite a few new features, here are the highlights:

Content generators: “json” and “form” generators are built right in. (example)
JSON WebSocket messages: Native serialization and deserialization support. (example)
JSON WebSocket tests: Just as easy to use as their HTTP equivalents. (example)
Event synchronization: Avoid callback spaghetti with delays. (example)
Scalability: The event loop got a lot better at managing more than 10k concurrent connections. (example)
Smooth restarting: The Morbo development web server does not have any noticeable downtime while restarting anymore.
Hooks: The framework got more extensible with new hooks. (example)
GZip: Compression is now transparently supported by the user agent.
HTML5 forms: Tag helpers have been added for many of the new form elements. (example)
Session expiration: Can now be controlled with a relative value that persists within the session. (example)
GET/POST parameters: Retrieve multiple values at once with the much more secure multi name form. (example)
JSON Pointers: Now fully RFC 6901 compliant. (example)
Monotonic clock support: All built-in web servers are now very resilient to time jumps.

And as usual there is a lot more to discover, see Changes on GitHub for the full list of improvements.

Have fun!

Mangolicious

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:03:00 +0100

I’m very happy to announce the first alpha release of Mango, a new pure-Perl non-blocking I/O MongoDB client, and the latest Mojolicious spin-off project.

If you’ve ever worked with the official MongoDB driver for Perl, you’re probably well aware of its many shortcomings, so i’m not gonna ramble on about it… it’s basically the only driver i could find that still defaults to unsafe writes.

While MongoDB itself can be a bit quirky as well, it is also a hell of a lot of fun to work with, especially for rapid prototyping HTML5 web applications. Now that real-time web technologies such as WebSockets are becoming more and more popular, there is a growing demand for versatile non-blocking datastores that work well with event loops. So Mango has been designed from the ground up with the same hybrid architecture as the popular Mojo::UserAgent, and both share the same general characteristics.

Some of the most important features are:

Clean blocking and non-blocking hybrid API.
All operations are safe by default, you have to work to lose data.
Fast and simple installation, no C compiler needed.
Optimized for use with Mojolicious.

And of course here’s the obligatory example application. ;)

https://gist.github.com/kraih/4756855

So, what are you waiting for? Get yourself a free account over at MongoHQ or MongoLab and start writing awesome web applications.

Have fun!

Mojolicious 3.0 released: Perl real-time web framework

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 23:44:00 +0200

It fills me with great joy to announce the release of Mojolicious 3.0 (Rainbow).

This marks the first major release for our newly formed core team, consisting of Glen Hinkle, Marcus Ramberg, Abhijit Menon-Sen and yours truly. A lot has happened during the last 8 months since our 2.0 release, most design decisions are now made by majority vote. The core feature set is not changing much anymore, and we are in the process of refocusing our efforts on making Mojolicious more approachable for beginners and easier to extend. The community is still growing fast, and we’ve just passed 666 watchers on GitHub, thanks everyone! :)

There are many new features, here are the highlights:

TLS and IPv6: Support for both has been greatly improved.
Commands: The command system has been completely revamped. (example)
Plugins: Generator and CPAN upload commands make extending Mojolicious easier than ever. (example)
Event loops: Mojolicious no longer needs to control the event loop. (example)
Content negotiation: Write more RESTful web services. (example)
JSON Pointers: Many features dealing with JSON got a lot smarter. (example)
Flexible router: Routes can now be rearranged. (example)
Flexible renderer: Serve templates and static files from as many DATA sections and paths as you like. (example)
Asset plugins: Easily bundle assets such templates and static files with plugins. (example)
Not found page: Is now actually a development tool.
Hypnotoad: Doesn’t require a separate configuration file anymore. (example)
WebSockets: Fully RFC 6455 compliant. (example)
Relaxed placeholders: Now look like “/#foo” instead of “/(.foo)”. (example)
I18N plugin: Maintained as a separate distribution from now on.

And as usual there is a lot more to discover, see Changes on GitHub for the full list of improvements.

Have fun!

A new look for Mojolicious

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:34:00 +0200

You may remember last year when we introduced all-new not found and server error pages for Mojolicious. Well, it’s that time of the year again, and we’ve recently been modernizing some of them. While both raptor pages still pass with flying colors, the more artsy development mode not found page only got mixed reviews. So it has been redesigned from scratch, and turned into more of a development tool, listing all the routes of your application.

The server error page only needed a few small refinements for both to have a similar look and feel, hope you like it.

Have fun!

Mojolicious in the cloud: Hello Heroku!

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 20:46:00 +0200

A lot has changed in the world of cloud hosting since the last time i took a closer look at one of the providers. Almost all of them support Perl these days, directly or indirectly. One of the most prominent ones is Heroku, and today we are going to use their official tools and a custom buildpack to deploy a Mojolicious::Lite application into the cloud.

First of all you need to sign up for a free account and install the Heroku Toolbelt, the heroku command line client will be available afterwards and take care of the rest.

https://gist.github.com/kraih/2899489

Only three files are required to make an application deployable to Heroku, the application script itself, a “Makefile.PL” containing a list of CPAN dependencies, and an executable “Perloku” script telling Heroku how to start the Mojolicious web server.

https://gist.github.com/kraih/2899522

For our little experiment we will only be using a very minimalistic application.

https://gist.github.com/kraih/2899530

And the only dependency is Mojolicious, but any CPAN module you specify can be installed automatically.

https://gist.github.com/kraih/2899541

My favorite Heroku feature is that we are allowed to run our own web server, which enables many of those nifty real-time web features to just work. The port to be used for listening will simply be passed along via environment variable.

https://gist.github.com/kraih/2899544

And those were all the preparations required, now we can just deploy our application withgit.

https://gist.github.com/kraih/2899556

I’ve also heard rumors that Glen “tempire” Hinkle might be working on new Mojolicious commands to make the whole process even easier, but you’ll have to visit (or watch the live stream of) his talk at YAPC::NA 2012 to learn more about that. ;)

Have fun!

Video

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 05:51:00 +0200

Mojolicious hack of the day: Mojolyst

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:57:00 +0100

Today i’ve got a real hack for you. We are going to hijack the Mojolicious router and turn it into a more Catalyst-ish decentralized one, just by using a plugin. Controllers are discovered on application startup and their routes composed automatically, even templates in the DATA sections of each controller are supported. :)

https://gist.github.com/kraih/2149176

Have fun!

Mojolicious hack of the day: More AnyEvent, oh my

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 03:30:00 +0100

Ever since we added AnyEvent support to Mojolicious through EV, it has been a very popular feature. But so far it required Mojolicious to be in control of the event loop, which limited its usefulness quite a bit. That has changed now, both our web server and user agent have become pretty much indistiguishable from normal AnyEvent components. Today i’m going to demonstrate how you can non-blockingly search Twitter for Perl with the user agent, from a PSGI application running inside the AnyEvent based Twiggy web server. In fact, it should work with any non-blocking capable web framework, such as Catalyst.

https://gist.github.com/kraih/1868865

Have fun!

Mojolicious and DBIx::Class

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:22:00 +0100

If you’ve ever been wondering how a well designed DBIx::Class model for Mojolicious and Mojolicious::Lite applications would look like, Glen Hinkle got you covered with his latest release.

The example application demonstrates DBIx::Class integration, how to test your web app with Test::Mojo, as well as how to use EP templates with and without tag helpers. For those unfamiliar with testing in general, there are even examples of DBIC schema tests.

Have fun!

A logo for MetaCPAN

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:01:00 +0100

In case you’ve missed it, there is currently a logo contest for MetaCPAN in progress. I’m generally not a big fan of contests, but since it’s for the Perl community, i’m participating as well. Here’s what i came up with. (the official entry should later show up here)

No fonts were harmed in the making of this logo, every character is custom made. I tried to combine a retro and futuristic feel, to highlight the long history of Perl and the fact that the CPAN is still science fiction for many programming languages. The three flying pixels are a metaphor for modules, small building blocks that can be combined to form something new. Hope you like it.

Have fun!

A Mojolicious 2011

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:30:00 +0100

Happy new year everyone, it’s amazing how much Mojolicious has progressed and grown in 2011, Marcus Ramberg has prepared a little retrospection for us.

A new year is upon us, and I figured this would be good time to take a look at the improvements in the Mojolicious framework in the last year. There has been a dazzling number of releases, 122 in fact, including the current release, 2.42.

Have fun!

Mojocast #5 Mojo::UserAgent

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 02:42:00 +0100

Merry christmas everyone, today Glen “tempire” Hinkle has a special treat for us. In this Mojocast he demonstrates why interacting with the web from Perl has never been this much fun before, you should take a look!

Mojocast Monday brings you a high-level overview of Mojo::UserAgent, the client side of Mojolicious. DOM Walking, CSS selectors, and watching live requests are just a couple of the things you’ll see.

Have fun!

Mojocast #4 Stash, Flash, and Sessions

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:56:00 +0100

Happy Mojocast monday everyone. This time Glen “tempire” Hinkle will explain to you the very important task of sharing data between the various parts of a Mojolicious application. So, what are you waiting for? Get over there and learn web development with Perl in no time!

Have fun!

Mojolicious hack of the day: WebSockets

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:36:00 +0100

By now you’ve probably heard about WebSockets, and that they are the future of web development, but so far there are very little examples that really show how easy to use they actually are. So today we are going to explore the wonderful world of events in Mojolicious a bit and build a little application that forwards all framework log messages to a browser window. (works best in Chrome)

https://gist.github.com/kraih/1330053

Have fun!

Mojolicious 2.0 released: Perl real-time web framework

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:24:00 +0200

I’m very happy to announce the release of Mojolicious 2.0 (Leaf Fluttering In Wind).

It is now almost a year since our first stable release, and what a great year it has been. The community really exploded, with now over 100 regulars on the IRC channel and 450 watchers on GitHub, making us by far the most successful CPAN module there. Thanks everyone!

Of course we also have many new features for you, here are the highlights:

Perl 5.10.1: We have finally increased the Perl version requirement and are already using all new features extensively. The performance increase is substantial, especially if you’re coming from Perl 5.8.
Morbo: A brand new self-restarting development web server that just works, even on Windows.
libev: Native support for the EV event loop and in turn AnyEvent. (example)
Events: Many objects now emit events, which can be used to extend Mojolicious. (you’ll hear much more about this soon, it’s very cool)
Mount plugin: Whole Mojolicious applications can now be embedded easily.
Groups: Mojolicious::Lite applications became a lot more powerful. (example)
Hypnotoad: Our primary production web server got a lot more user friendly.
Collections: Making web scraping a hell of a lot of fun. (example)
WebSocket testing: You won’t believe how easy it can be. (example)

And as usual there is a lot more to discover, see Changes on GitHub for the full list of improvements.

Have fun!

Mojolicious hack of the day: Web scraping with collections

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 04:26:00 +0200

Today we are going to use the Mojolicious user agent to scrape Perl headlines from Reddit, and then transform them further with collections, another one of our latest experimental features.

https://gist.github.com/kraih/1280965

Have fun!

Mojolicious hack of the day: Groups

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 07:24:00 +0200

Today i’m going to show you one of our latest experimental features. In the past we’ve mostly encouraged just to use Mojolicious instead of Mojolicious::Lite for all non-trivial applications, but over time it has become clear that even for single file prototypes you sometimes need a little more power. We’ve addressed this recently with the addition of group blocks, which allow under statements to be nested.

https://gist.github.com/kraih/1264549

And don’t forget to give feedback if you like one of our experimental features, or they might never leave the experimental stage. ;)

Have fun!

Mojolicious hack of the day: AnyEvent

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 08:24:00 +0200

When we recently added the EV backend to Mojolicious, we not only got better performance and scalability, but also native support for AnyEvent. And to demonstrate how easy to use it actually is, we are going to extend the HTML5 EventSource example from last month with some non-blocking IRC goodness today. :)

https://gist.github.com/kraih/1245355

Have fun!

Mojolicious hack of the day: Testing WebSockets

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:31:00 +0200

In Mojolicious we care a great deal about testing, after all most of Mojolicious itself was developed using test driven development. Recently WebSockets have turned out to be a real challenge in this regard, their extremely dynamic nature makes it pretty much impossible to design a simple Perl test API that would cover all possible use cases. Luckily we’ve been supporting WebSockets for quite some time and know by now that the exact message flow is known in advance for the most common ones, which led to this rather pleasant to use API. ;)

https://gist.github.com/kraih/1227900

Have fun!

Mojocast #3 Authentication, Helpers, and Plugins

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:53:00 +0200

Yes, it’s finally Mojocasts Monday again! And this time Glen “tempire” Hinkle makes some rather advanced topics like “under” and plugins look trivial. But what’s maybe even more impressive than the actual screencast itself is the new HTML5 video player, not only does it provide us with even better video quality, but also the ability to link directly to individual chapters.

Have fun!