Re: [HACKERS] web-based front end development

Thomas Lockhart wrote:
> (for obvious reasons) and I was wondering if anyone had suggestions
> for a good approach to app development for brower-based user
> interfaces.

> There are other applications which would be of interest, so something
> with some growth potential would be helpful.

> Are there any options which are particularly "approachable" which
> would allow newbies to get something working if they have some
> existing code to look at?

My recommendation is AOLserver 3. If you know any tcl, you can deal
with AOLserver's tcl. AOLserver is a complete, lightweight,
multithreaded, industrial-strength, open source powerhouse of a web
server, available from www.aolserver.com. There are many examples
available. AOL runs their www.aol.com and www.digitalcity.com sites on
AOLserver -- this thing is a performance beast! Postgres is well
supported under the older 2.3 series and the newer 3.0 series. 2.3 is
not open source, though.

In fact, AOLserver's support of Postgres is why I got started with
PostgreSQL in the first place -- the seamless db connectivity was just
too tempting. Database connections are pooled and throttled, so that
only as many backends as your server can support can be loaded at any
time. Connection threads share pooled connections -- a new backend is
not spawned for each an every page request -- AOLserver was the first
web server with this capability, BTW. AOLserver will cooexist with
other web servers on the same box -- you can have it listen to any port
you desire, on any interface.

AOLserver allows embedded tcl inside HTML pages -- and the tcl has
complete run of the database. For administration, a telnet control port
is available that allows execution of operating system commands, tcl
commands, and direct entry of SQL -- like having its own psql built-in.

Version 3 is currently at beta 2, but development is heavy.

And, AOL is using this for their highest traffic sites.

The interactive development community site is at aolserver.lcs.mit.edu,
and is run by the guys behind ArsDigita (the best known of whom is
Philip Greenspun, Mr. Database-backed-website himself.). Their
ArsDigita Community System (ACS) is written for the 2.3 server, but is
chock full of example code that runs backed by Oracle, although an
effort is underway to port over to PostgreSQL.

The learning curve is surprising shallow, with any experienced
programmer taking maybe a day or so to get up to speed on AOLserver's
dialect of tk-less tcl. I have run this system for over two years, and
it works very well.

For more information on Greenspun's philosophy and on AOLserver itself,
check out the book "Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing",
available at amazon.com or for free at photo.net/wtr/thebook -- this
book really is a must-read.

HTH.

Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio