And now the BBC presents: PERL on Rails

Every programming language seem to have some sort of Ruby on Rails like framework. PHP got a couple lot. Python got Django (Django is not Rails though). Now the BBC went and made a Rails-like web framework with PERL.

This I found quite amusing:

“Like most organisations the BBC has its own technical ecosystem; the BBC’s is pretty much restricted to Perl and static files. This means that the vast majority of the BBC’s website is statically published - in other words HTML is created internally and FTP’ed to the web servers. There are then a range of Perl scripts that are used to provide additional functionality and interactivity.”

Their sites are statically published?! I did not know that and find it quite, uhm, shocking that a big organization would have such a primitive way of publishing their sites.

“For applications that run internally we use Ruby on Rail. Because we enjoy using it…”

No surprise there.

They built PERL on Rails because:

“We need to use Perl, there are restrictions on which libraries can and can’t be installed on the live environment and we needed a framework that could handle significant load.”

Now I’m just wondering, are they planning to release the source code, or is it going to stay an internal framework exclusive to the BBC? Should be quite interesting to see it and experiment with it. No-one knows yet. This part of their site is powered by PERL on Rails, they say.

They would almost certainly have to change the name. When PHP on Rails first saw the light, it was quickly slapped with a lawyers letter and had to change its name. Now known as PHP on Trax.

7 Comments to "And now the BBC presents: PERL on Rails"

• Andrew said: On 12/06/2007 at 9:51 am

  Have a read through this: Perl on Rails - Why the BBC Fails at the Internet. In one sense it is encouraging that they’re trying to use a worthwhile development methodology. In the other sense, it is tragic that they could have been doing this years ago if they had a shred of technical competence.

• Perl Coding School » Blog Archive » perl code [2007-12-06 10:21:37] said: On 12/06/2007 at 11:31 am

  [...] And now the BBC presents: PERL on Rails By Stii Now I’m just wondering, are they planning to release the source code, or is it going to stay an internal framework exclusive to the BBC? Should be quite interesting to see it and experiment with it. No-one knows yet. … stii.za.net - http://stii.za.net [...]

• Nick Reynolds said: On 12/06/2007 at 1:10 pm

  See also this post from James Cridland of the BBC. (Disclaimer - I am the editor of the blog James’ post appears on).

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2007/12/external_web_infrastructure.html

• Stii said: On 12/06/2007 at 3:03 pm

  Hey Nick,

  thank you for that update! Most helpful! So it is official; the source will be released by the BBC! Good shot!

• Custom Rails » And now the BBC presents: PERL on <b>Rails</b> said: On 12/06/2007 at 6:00 pm

  [...] Check This Out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today. Here’s a quick excerpt: Every programming language seem to have some sort of Ruby on Rails like framework. PHP got a couple lot. Python got Django (Django is not Rails though). Now the BBC went and made a Rails-like web framework with PERL. … [...]

• Charl van Niekerk said: On 12/09/2007 at 2:11 pm

  I don’t see anything wrong with publishing static files. As a matter of fact, I find that the most elegant way of working when your site does not contain content that can change by the minute. I think of it as a method of caching. It’s the most secure as well. Well done to them for that.

• xHydra said: On 05/06/2008 at 7:22 am

  “Perl on Rails whats next Cobol on cogs”

Spit it out!

Filed in: Open Source, PHP, Programming, Python, Ruby (on Rails), Software Development, web development by: Stii