it might just be a difference in architecture. i still don't quite get how the server and applications/contexts relate to each other in webware.
I'm not sure of the original intention for contexts either. Ian Bicking said they wanted to allow different configuration settings in different contexts but that was never implemented. At the moment, a context is just a way to specify multiple folders to store your HTML files in.
As far as "web applications" go, with Webware, there is one Python interpreter and that runs the Application Server, and your servlets. The Application Server may create multiple instances of each servlet to handle heavy loads. You can specify multiple places to store your "logic layer" python code just by adding to sys.path. So contexts here don't really do much.
let's say i have two unrelated applications, "inventory" and "human-resources", to be hosted on the same physical machine. would i run MakeAppWorkDir for each:
MakeAppWorkDir -c inventory /usr/local/webapps/inventory MakeAppWorkDir -c human-resources /usr/local/webapps/human-resources
...and then create two init scripts, run two ThreadedAppServer instances on different ports, add entries for each in the apache config files, etc...? if so, it seems it would become unwieldy once you start getting into dozens of applications on the same box.
or, use MakeAppWorkDir once, and just create additional context directories manually:
MakeAppWorkDir -c inventory /usr/local/webapps mkdir /usr/local/webapps/human-resources
...and just put the human resources servlets etc in that directory?
What is your goal in making separate "applications"? If your goal is to isolate a severe crash in one from crashing the other, then you would want to run separate instances of Webware. The downside is more administration of multiple application servers and more ports to configure with Apache. If your goal is to organize the files relevant to a particular application, I would say put it all in one webware instance, and just use different sub-folders for each "application".
I have had few problems with page crashes bringing the whole system down. I would do it all with one AppServer first, and then if you start to feel the need for it, separate them into multiple instances.
while i have the opportunity, an unrelated question (which may stem from my conception of contexts as isolated applications): in servlets, is it possible (or even desirable) to have paths interpreted relative to the context root?
eg, using the example above, when i reference a cheetah template i have to do something like this:
template = Template(file="inventory/stock-levels.tmpl")
this feels awkward to me - again, perhaps because i think that the context is the application root, and therefore the application shouldn't have to know the name of the directory that its files are in.
I always have file paths either relative to the current page, or relative to a global HTTP_ROOT variable. I check the hostname to determine what I set HTTP_ROOT to.
-winston
_________________________________________
winston wolff - (646) 827-2242 - http://www.stratolab.com - learning by creating
------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. Export to DOC, XLS, RTF, etc. Download a FREE copy at http://www.intelliview.com/go/osdn_nl _______________________________________________ Webware-discuss mailing list Webware-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/webware-discuss
