Do we need to build "our small church" ? (was : Web programming progress report)

[Pierre Sahores]

Dan Shafer a écrit :
> 
> >Mark Talluto wrote:
> >
> >> I got this link by the way (ironically) from Richard's RevNet.  This
> >> app runs outside the browser and best shows what can be done when you
> >> are not constrained by the browser.
> >
> >FWIW, RevNet is powered by the Rev/MC engine on both the client and server
> >sides:  the feedback and submission forms feed data to MC-based CGIs.
> >
> >Perl's great -- until you get a Web host that lets you run MC. :)
> >
> Perl's never great! <g,r,d> Go Python! Go Transcript!
> >--

-- snip --

Hello All,

Please friends ! We all, the MC/Rev developers, don't need to build "our
small church", in thinking that there is no ways to develop great softs
outside of the Metatalk/Transcript world...

The best we can do is to let evry one of us, witch knows other kind of
languages, compare what can be done in differents ways along or beside
our core MC/Rev development tools (aka php, applescript, the unixes
shells, lisp, smalltalk, python, perl or rebol, etc...) to let us become
aware about the concepts and the methods we can learn from "others
computer worlds", even if, most of the time, it will be ways to catch
the bests ideas and recode them in Metatalk/Transcript.

Just two examples, please :

1.- Because it was for me difficult to have mc-based complexes cgis
(apache to web-dedicated backgrounder apps links in using tcp/ip sockets
listners) availables betwin 1998 and 2002, i found a way to let apache
speaks to my mc-based web/vpn apps in using a kind of 10 lines coded
.php-based simples and usefull sockets listeners. If i right remember,
Scott discovered a way to let me replace my .php scripts by .mt-based
sockets listeners in october 2002... It's because the help of 10 lines
of a non-mc/rev code that i could, in betwin install Megs of mc-based
web/vpn apps on the internet, for my office and others clients...

2.- Before middle-2002, most of my web/vpn served databases went builded
as "flat-files-based tables" directly readed, parsed and wrotten by
metatalk code. With the time and because the tables went more and more
big and complex, it became difficult and, perhaps, dangerous to gohead
in this way (all the database logical code at my own responsability, all
the tables in ram, etc...). It's why, after learning around about the
databases world (objects RDBMS and relational RDBMS), i discovered in
how a clean SQL-based RDBMS could help my MC-based apps to do fastest
calculations and serve, with a best security, datas over the internet.

There is two parts in the SQL algebre : the first one (and the best
knowed) is the job of searches, reads, writes and updates on records,
inside the databases tables. Some RDBMS are able to handle that in the
bests ways, in terms of security and speed, including the concurrent
accesses in both read and write modes, one side, the automatic
autocontrol of the datas integrity, second side. This first part of the
SQL algebre is best done in using an acid-compliant SQL databases server
(aka PostgreSQL, Oracle, Borland FireBird or SAPDB) than in using any
metatalk code, because mc can't handle the acid-compliance of the
previous named db servers, because mc can only handle datas in ram, not
by reading directly datas offsets from disk. It's because i choosed to
let PostgreSQL handle the "datas accesses part of the job" that my
mc-based applications servers are, yet, running more securely and
faster...

The second part of the SQL algebre, the data manipulation and
calculations, is clearly a little primitive and (it's what i think) far
unusable to build in some simples lines great requests and filter :
here, in this part of the job, the PostgreSQL internal scripting
languages (pgsql) or the Oracle pl/sql are clearly kids toys beside
Metatalk or Transcript. It's why, i'm there realy happy to be able to
use them, instead of the RDBMS scripting tools and stocked procedures,
do the job...

3.- Because Apple is always thinking to do better than the others, they
are, perhaps, sometimes walking beside the way... MacOS 7.1/7.5 was lots
more powerfull than Windows 3.1..., MacOS 8.1/8.6 was lots more
powerfull than Win 95/98... Is Jaguar lots more powerfull than a clean
installed Suse or Redhat 8.xx distribution ? Not sure, at least...

It was just to say... MC/Rev are probably lots more than our first
choice if, we can understand how to melt the needed outworld's
technologies in our softs, each time the final products are going to be
better in this way.

--
Kind Regards, Pierre Sahores

Inspection académique de Seine-Saint-Denis.
Applications et bases de données WEB et VPN
Qualifier et produire l'avantage compétitif