Catalyst is a new book from Packt which helps users to design, develop, test, and deploy applications with the open-source MVC Catalyst framework. Written by Jonathan Rockway, this book will guide users through the features of Catalyst using real-world examples and systematic code snippets.

Many web applications are implemented in a way that makes developing them painful and repetitive. Catalyst is an open-source Perl-based Model-View-Controller framework that aims to solve this problem by reorganizing the web application to design and implement it in a natural, maintainable, and testable manner, making web development fun, fast and rewarding.

Catalyst is designed to be reliable. There are hundreds of production applications and thousands of users. The code is well-tested, and new releases almost always maintain compatibility with applications written for older versions. Users don't have to worry about Catalyst breaking their application and slowing down their development. It just works.

Most importantly, Catalyst has a thriving community. Users can ask a question on the IRC channel and get a response at almost any time of the day. This book embodies Catalyst's philosophies of “Do It Yourself and Don't Repeat Yourself”.

This book is for web developers with basic Perl skills who are new to Catalyst. If users are excited by Ruby on Rails but would like the features of Rails with the familiarity of Perl, then this is the best book to get them started.