Making the move...

[Sivakatirswami]

at www.himalayanacademy.com and www.hinduismtoday.com we use *only*  
rev cgi's... and REvo remote clients

But, I have also installed PMwiki which uses PHP.

mod_php is presumably "up  and running" all the time, but the rev  
engine is being loaded on each instance of a cgi being called.  
Nevertheless I can assure you, the Rev CGI "beat the pants off PHP"  
And we have some fairly complex CGI's in Rev, complex in the sense  
that they read templates from disk, replace place holder strings in  
the templates and send the web page back out. It really sparkles...  
while PMwiki, fast relative to other database based wikis, is  
sluggish compared to my Rev CGI's.

FYI: but that is not enough (smile)  we are going to set up a new web  
server in a couple of days, with a dual XEON processor at servePath  
with a 100mbps VPN socket to the switch (where our box is the *only*  
box on the Class C network before the router) and Andre will be  
figuring out how to install Fast_CGI behind Revolution on the new  
box...We can't wait to see how this thing will blaze! We will keep  
you all posted.

I don't know any other language at all but Revolution... so all this  
talk about ajax and stuff is way over my head... maybe that's an  
advantage ifI you already have a Lear Jet, why do you need to know  
how to run a bi-prop?

Hindu Press International is daily generated from the managing  
editor's, work station on, this Rev app builds the daily web pages,  
posts RSS feeds, send out email to the mailing list. I have a remote  
app deployed where voluteers can access the web server, download  
sound files, they do their work, the application uploads transcripts,  
opens the XML file in their browser, sends me and email... I mean  
*why* on earth do you even *want* to use an app inside a browser.  If  
you *need* to access the web, which is not a bad thing.. then just  
send the to the browser to do what browsers do: display HTML: a  
librarian for static resources and leave it there.

We use parsed web page templates (heavy use of SSI's) on all our  
sites and with <! include exec="/cgi-bin/someRev.cgi"> you can do  
some very interesting things. For example, at  
www.himalayanacademy.com the side bar links for any web pages on in  
any area on the web site are dynamically chosen based on the location  
of the web page. It's very cool and utterly simple, because it means  
that our web editors can take one template, use it for any web page  
in any location and he will get the local area navigation  
automatically installed depending on where the web page is placed.

www.himalayanacademy.com/taka/  see the little "archive" iFrame, down  
on the right side of the page. This is another very interesting use  
of Rev...where the CGI installs an interactive "calendar" object (so  
to speak) into the iFrame, dynamically.  it's basically an embedded  
object... and if it were "JAVA" who know where you could go with it.

my point here is similar to Wally's: I'm not a developer, in any  
given day we have a *lot* of other things happening. Somehow with  
Rev, I can build all this in house and RAD stuff without breaking  
your head on small coding issues for days and days. If my manager  
editor comes to me with a small feature request for the Hindu Press  
International app  I built... With transcript it always seems like  
it's a rare day when you cannot solve a problem or figure out how to  
get something done in less than ten minutes... and then keep moving  
forward. meanwhile, every time I open the PHP config files for the   
web wiki, I start to get a headache right away  (smile)... I mean...  
I *can* figure it out...but, it's just like one has to keep groking  
that code all, while  with transcript, you just think and do it.

If Anyone wants  to see our CGI's I would be happy to put them  
somewhere. Because I am not a developer, they could be  easy for  
newbies to re-use. I see a lot of different places not where this  
kind of offering could be posted and one doesn't know which is best.

And last but not least, to affirm Richard's observations with real  
life testimony (I think I posted some of this once before)

>  While only useful in a subset of scenarios, it offers many  
> benefits, esp. for intranets where employers are losing billions in  
> lost productivity by providing open web access to their employees  
> when all they really need is access to specific company- and vendor- 
> specific resources.

*confirmed!*: This week we see another case of the trend.."Away from  
browsers"  We have a xerox Printer copier proofing machine  here and  
Xerox used to deploy a browser based, UI, that users on the LAN would  
open in IE or Firefox (didn't  work in Safari....) to *see* the  
printer across the LAN, the printer is using a truncated linux OS on  
the FIERY.. well that thing was so buggy and broken...

Well guess what? Their reps came by this week to tell us. "Our  
engineers at Xerox abandoned the web based Java UI and we have built  
this cool net enable desktop application called Command  
WorkStation...we got an OSX version and one for Windows...  so now  
you can run your Fiery apps: Color calibration, scanner access,  
printer spool controller etc. all from this desktop application.. oh  
yeah that web based app was horrible, we agree..." I just had to  
smile... as our Revolutionaries have been writing these things for  
over 5 Years now...and REv developers are *perfectly* poised to meet  
this demand...

Similarly, inside Creo's high end Emerge and InSite Pre-press  
framework, (Creo is now owned by Xerox) their engineers are also  
moving toward net enabled desktop apps which are slowly displacing or  
at least complementing, their *incredibly slow!!* Java  based AJAX  
thingies...  tech support at Banta Electronic Pre-Press in Kansas  
City (those guys live on the cutting edge of enterprise collaboration  
tools) singing pretty much the same tune "Oh yeah, Creo had so much  
trouble with  that browser based Synapse Prepare Java framework, time  
wise, it was killing all the pre-press teams and publishers were  
complaining they couldn't afford to have their people falling asleep  
while that stuff loaded in the browser . Your team at Hinduism Today  
loves the bleeding edge... why don't you test Creo's latest Insite  
Remote Desktop client for us... you can download the OSX version  
here.....It's really fast and Creo's engineers  say they love it --  
they don't have to try to make that thing work inside a browser any  
more... what a relief." Oh, "Hello," it's 2006 already... and they  
are just waking up...

"Beyond the Browser"  By Richard Gaskin... 1st draft, 2001 (smile)

Sivakatirswami





On Mar 15, 2006, at 12:12 PM, J. Landman Gay wrote:

> I don't have benchmarks, but Scott Raney once said that the load  
> time of the engine when used as a CGI was "insignificant".