title: Web Photo Gallery Album Whatevers
# category is optional, may be only one word, defaults to "main"
category: tech
content: |

    <p>I want to run a photo gallery app on my web server.  I'd
    like it to be written in Perl, because I'm just that kind of
    person.</p>

    <table border="1">
        <thead>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <strong>Package</strong>
                </td>
                <td>
                    <strong>The Good</strong>
                </td>
                <td>
                    <strong>The Bad</strong>
                </td>
            </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <code>Album</code>
                </td>
                <td>
                    <ul>
                        <li>Generates fairly civilized output</li>
                        <li>Generates thumbnails</li>
                        <li>Knows what has already been done</li>
                    </ul>
                </td>
                <td>
                    <ul>
                        <li>Static output, requires maintenance</li>
                        <li>Awkward command-line interface</li>
                        <li>No sub-albums</li>
                    </ul>
                </td>
            </tr>
    <!--
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <code>Apache::Album</code>
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <code>Apache::App::Gallery::Simple</code>
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <code>Apache::Gallery</code>
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <code>AxKit::App::Gallery</code>
                </td>
            </tr>
    -->
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <code>CGI::Application::PhotoGallery</code>
                </td>
                <td>
                    <ul>
                        <li>No horribly ugly dependencies</li>
                    </ul>
                </td>
                <td>
                    <ul>
                        <li>Horribly ugly output</li>
                    </ul>
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <code>HTML::PhotoGallery</code>
                </td>
                <td>
                    <ul>
                        <li>Doesn't break in the absence of thumbnails</li>
                        <li>Reasonably fast</li>
                    </ul>
                </td>
                <td>
                    <ul>
                        <li>Output not based on templates</li>
                        <li>Roll your own thumbnails</li>
                        <li>No sub-albums</li>
                    </ul>
                </td>
            </tr>
    <!--
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <code>PhotoIndex</code>
                </td>
            </tr>
    -->
        </tbody>
    </table>

    <p>There are a lot of packages that run with <code>mod_perl</code>
    but my experience suggests that they only run under
    <code>mod_perl</code> version 1.x, which must run with Apache
    HTTPD 1.x, which was a total administration headache.  I run
    Apache HTTPD 2.0.x, which is fairly sane.</p>

    <p>I've played with a piece of software called JAlbum, and it
    looks pretty good.  It's written in Java.  But it demands GUI
    space.  I don't like lots of GUI apps.</p>

    <p>This leads me to a conclusion I don't like: Gallery really
    is all that and a bag of chips, even if it is written in PHP.</p>

    <p>I'll cry now, if you don't mind.</p>