[Q] "Why should I use mod_perl?"

[Salve J Nilsen <sj...@pvv.org>]

Hi, all! :)

Seems like much of the advocacy-talking has moved back to the main
list, so in order to keep the modperl-advocacy list alive, I'll pose a
question...

A little while ago, I had a "mod_perl versus other product" chat with
someone. I think the product in question was PHP4, but that doesn't
really matter in this case. The question I got stumped on was "why
should I need a tool that gives me access to the apache guts? Isn't
that complicating things unnecessarily?"

How about if we compile a list of useful (and cool!) things we can do
with mod_perl, but can not (easily) do with competing products? (And
perhaps _why_ and _when_ we want to do this!)

I'll start with a couple of shots in the dark - please correct me if
I'm missing something! :)

==============================8<---------------------------------------

Customized logging

  + Logging to a RDBMS
    + Makes log analysis much easier. (Apache::DBILogger)

Customized authentication/authorization schemes

  + SMB/NTLM/NIS/LDAP based authentication/authorization
    + Enables users to log in to their intranet with their "usual"
      NT/Unix passwords. (Apache::AuthLDAP, Apache::AuthenNIS,
      Apache::AuthenSMB, more!)

Advanced output filtering techniques

  + Automatic output compression
    + Minimizes network transfer bottlenecks by compressing output
      before sending it to the client! (Apache::GzipChain)

------------------------------------------>8============================

It would also be nice to put a finger on "low end" situations where
mod_perl shines! :)


- Salve

-- 
#!/usr/bin/perl
sub AUTOLOAD{$AUTOLOAD=~/.*::(\d+)/;seek(DATA,$1,0);print#  Salve Joshua Nilsen
getc DATA}$"="'};&{'";@_=unpack("C*",unpack("u*",':4@,$'.#     <sj...@foo.no>
'2!--"5-(50P%$PL,!0X354UC-PP%/0\`'."\n"));eval "&{'@_'}";   __END__ is near! :)