A long exercise in quickstart magic

jk2addict on 2006-11-12T03:55:17

One of the last things I have on the list before Handel 1.0 is let loose upon the world was to get the QuickStart.pod in order. Before that can be done, I actually need to make a quick start possible. :-)

Handel already has Catalyst helpers to generate start scaffolding for cart/order/checkout pages and to add just pieces and parts to an existing Cat app. And a few weeks ago, I created Module::Starter::Handel to auto generate the recommended non-catalyst subclasses.

Today was an effort on marrying the two.

For users not interested in Cat (WTF?), you can:

handel MyApp
cd MyApp
script/myapp_setup.pl dbi:foo:bar

That creates the recommended subclasses and installs the schema using DBICs deploy(). Just make install that new package, and you're off to the races with your own setup.

For Cat users, it's just:

catalyst MyApp
cd MyApp
script/myapp_create.pl Handel dbi:foo:bar
script/myapp_createdb.pl dbi:foo:bar
script/myapp_server.pl

Much like the first version, that just installs all of the Cat helpers + the non-cat subclasses in one step.

In both, the installation/creation of the database is a seperate step. This gives you a chance to alter the subclasses (change a table name, add a column), then deploy the modified schema.

There is one manual step in Cat code. You must manually add the Session plugins to MyApp.pm.

Not perfect, but it's better than what I have now: answering the same 'how do I get started' questions over and over. :-)

&bedtime