> I sometimes fantasize (for lack of a better word)
> about creating my very own web-server software ...
> and a much better web client too! But then reality
> hits me like a ton of bricks. The design, the
> programming, etc, ... but also getting the thing
> adopted by the public at large. If there is to be
any
> hope of achieving it, I must equip myself with a
very
> powerful set of Rapid Application Development tools
> ... you guessed it ... I want our OpenCard
> (shameless plug!).
MPOWerd: lol, before I had MacOS 8.5 with apple
personal websharing, I hacked together a web server in
RealBasic.
Alain: Do you still have it? Does it work? Is it
modular? Could we reuse some parts?
MPOWerd: It could rewrite the pages so that they
pointed to my new IP.
Alain: I am not sure that I understand what you mean.
MPOWerd: It could allow me to telnet off my machine
from another machine.
Alain: Yes, that can indeed be useful, particularly in
the case of robots/agents for automation purposes.
Alain: There are Scripting Additions and Externals
that allow one to script many Internet protocols. One
of my personal favorites is the Allegiant Marionet
XCMD and scriptable multi-threaded web proxy that runs
in the background.
Alain: What I am particularly interested in at this
time would be web-server software that handles all of
the nuts & bolts of HTTP/CGI, auto-detects the
client's browser configuration and acts accordingly,
logs all transactions to a high-performance database
with reporting capabilities, and has some
sophisticated yet easy-to-configure security features.
MPOWerd: oh well, those were the days.
Alain: It is one of my convictions that we are
currently in a severe software crisis, similar to the
one in the sixties and seventies that saw the advent
of structured programming. New models and
methodologies are needed to cope with ever-increasing
complexity and short time-to-market periods. One of
the trends that may portend of better programming
times is, of course, the Open Source movement of which
we are a part. But this is by no means a "gimme".
There are also other promising avenues for tackling
complexity more efficiently but, just in case I am
boring my audience, I will leave it at that for now.
=====
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