#halp

Halp is a simple templating Web and Gemini server, written in Perl 5.

It was created to scratch an itch: to run both my personal Gemini capsule and my professional Web site on the same server.

#prerequisites

1. perl5

#tests

$ prove -rv t

#license

halp is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License 3.0.

#credits

• Brad Taunt for an excellent suggestion on how to approach site navigation without hamburger menus.

#FAQ

#1. why Perl?

I have several goals for Halp:

1. Long-lived. Ideally, it'll last me for at least a decade, maybe more.
2. Highly portable. I don't want to be tied to the "big three" of macOS, GNU/Linux, and Windows - Plan 9 is still on my radar for the future.
3. Safe. This means, e.g., not having to roll my own crypto or template libraries.
4. Not a Google product.

This led me to a pretty short shortlist:

1. The Plan 9 dialect of C.
2. rc shell.
3. Perl 5.

Having spent a few years as a professional C coder I'm reluctant to reach for it for any text-heavy task. rc is okay but I don't find it terribly easy to read - I struggled a bit with Werc. That left ... Perl!

#2. what on earth is that mascot?

It's "Purlapin", a mascot created by Stable Diffusion and named by Chat GPT. It's just too surreal not to use even though I have no idea what it is.