Hi Brian, It is indeed, as you so eloquently put it, a whole lot of files! And they use about 20 megabytes of space (where the database itself is less than 1 MB, and one firestorm script would add only 200KB).
14 years ago, when Lew, Thom, and I started experimenting with putting DP databases on the Internet, disk space was scarce, and relatively expensive. Had we taken this approach with Tony's Know & Enjoy Mexico website for example, there would have been tens of thousands of files taking up about 200 megabytes. At prices then, that would have cost $50 a month for disk space alone. Instead, we used firestorm to generate the pages on demand, using only about 20 megabytes of disk space (split about half and half between database files and CGI script files). This saved $45 a month, and so was a really good idea at the time. Today, the same kind of calculation arrives at a different conclusion! It is less expensive to generate all possible pages whenever something significant changes and/or periodically, and just let the web server produce them when they are needed. That is why Tony and I are undertaking a project to write DP reports to generate all of the pages of his website. The firestorm scripts will be retired when the project completes. Another aspect of this relates to your "lonely" feeling, or to use your lovely alliteration, "sole soul". The vast majority of us on the mailing list are not programmers. And comfort with programming is required to use firestorm. Writing a DP report, on the other hand, is a walk in the park for this group! So, while I am still actively involved in using DP on the web (and on a work PC for many tasks that come up in my day job as well), I have pretty much stopped using firestorm. At one time, I also had a project (dp-web.net) which involved running DP reports on Linux through dosemu, but I have abandoned it. Sorry to leave you pretty much alone in your specialty! I have added a page of technical details at http://www.sanbachs.net/ufv/tech.html for those interested. Best wishes, Bruce 2010/10/27 Brian Hancock <[email protected]> > Hi Bruce, > > > > Thanks for that. Although not something that I think I would directly use > in the way you have it (damn that is a log of pages), it certainly gave me > an idea. > > > > In my DP web applications, running CGI and dynamic reports from DP can be > quite slow, so the idea of caching lookup tables as plain XML files rather > than running DP each time is an attractive thought. Additionally I could use > other simple web reports and run supplementary procedures to schedule cron > jobs to update any look up tables that may have changed look up tables; eg > regenerating lookup tables of items in the database from web reports when > items are added or removed. The lookup tables can be kept away from the > public folders so users can’t download them but where my PERL script can > access them. > > > > Bruce, you seem to be still doing some web work in DP, have you been > working with the dynamic creation of output from DP via CGI and transaction > logs? Maybe we can share ideas. I feel like a sole soul in this area. > > > > Regards > > Brian > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto: > [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Bruce Conrad > *Sent:* Thursday, 28 October 2010 3:27 AM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* Re: [Dataperf] simulating DP lookups in web pags > > > > Thanks Joe, > > > > Firestorm is not involved at all in the newer demo, which is purely DP > (except for a generic CGI script). This is the one from > http://www.sanbachs.net/ufv/ > > > > The older demo (from http://www.sanbachs.net/cdi/ ) depends on Firestorm. > > > > The only experience that I have with Firestorm is on a Linux (RedHat RHEL3) > server. > > > > Thanks again and best wishes, > > Bruce > > 2010/10/26 Joseph Bush <[email protected]> > > I had forgotten about Firestorm. Very impressive, Bruce! Has anyone tried > running Firestorm on apple servers? > > > > Joe. > > _______________________________________________ > Dataperf mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.dataperfect.nl/mailman/listinfo/dataperf > >
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