Catalyst::Manual::Intro 5.7003

Catalyst::Manual::Intro is an Introduction to Catalyst.

This is a brief introduction to Catalyst. It explains the most important features of how Catalyst works and shows how to get a simple application up and running quickly. For an introduction (without code) to Catalyst itself, and why you should be using it, see Catalyst::Manual::About. For a systematic step-by-step introduction to writing an application with Catalyst, see Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial.

What is Catalyst?

Catalyst is an elegant web application framework, extremely flexible yet extremely simple. Its similar to Ruby on Rails, Spring (Java), and Maypole, upon which it was originally based. Its most important design philosphy is to provide easy access to all the tools you need to develop web applications, with few restrictions on how you need to use these tools.

However, this does mean that it is always possible to do things in a different way. Other web frameworks are initially simpler to use, but achieve this by locking the programmer into a single set of tools. Catalysts emphasis on flexibility means that you have to think more to use it. We view this as a feature. For example, this leads to Catalyst being more suited to system integration tasks than other web frameworks.