Rev and open source (was "What Rev Needs")

Dan Shafer revolutionary.dan at gmail.com
Sat Dec 10 15:39:31 EST 2005


Sorry to be so late to this conversation. Programming soaks up too much time
I'd rather spend list cruising. Sigh.

Just a minor point here. I think it's important (even though some will find
it to be word-wrangling) to differentiate between Web applications and
Web-aware or Web-based applications. In my definition and understanding
(which may be entirely wrong-headed) the former are apps that actually run
on the server and use a standard browser for the UI. The latter are
generally standalone apps that interact with Web (and other) Internet
servers on which they rely for data storage and retrieval.

Rev is absolutely superb at buildling Web-based applications, better in fact
than any tool I've found. But of course it cannot really build Web
applications since, by definition, those run in a standard browser. So when
a client requests an application that doesn't require the user to download a
standalone or a plugin, Rev's role in the process is necessarily limited to
server-side, CGI-like involvement.

And BTW and FWIW, as long as Rev as a CGI app requires some sort of C
library that isn't commonly avaiable on hosting servers such as Dreamhost,
its utility as a CGI is limited to situations where you are in control of
the server or can convince the hosting service to accommodate what's needed.
I don't even pretend to fully understand the problem, but I do know that I
can't run Rev CGIs on my hosting service (Dreamhost0 because Rev looks for
some library that doesn't exist. That really needs to be fixed.

My $0.04 (inflation is galloping)

On 12/8/05, Devin Asay <devin_asay at byu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> I have other Rev apps that have similarly pulled together disparate
> technologies quickly and easily into a Rev front end. In my opinion
> this is an area in which Rev excels--as a rapid development platform
> for writing front ends to other technologies. In effect, Rev
> increases the power and reach of the latter, showing itself to be an
> easy-to-learn "glue" for open source stuff that's often opaque to non-
> propeller-heads.
>
>
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan Shafer, Information Product Consultant and Author
http://www.shafermedia.com
Get my book, "Revolution: Software at the Speed of Thought"
>From http://www.shafermediastore.com/tech_main.html



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