[OT] Opinions about On-Rev

[-= JB =-]

Thanks for the info Jacque.  It really explains a lot I didn't know.

-=>JB<=-


On Apr 17, 2009, at 6:21 PM, J. Landman Gay wrote:

> Joe Lewis Wilkins wrote:
>
>> I have found this whole subject so far over my head that I'm  
>> embarrassed. Can anyone sight some sort of reference that just  
>> "might" get me off of my desktop. I am soooo uneducated on this  
>> topic. Simply stated, what's this for, why is it needed and what  
>> does it let us do that we can do now? There MUST be others who are  
>> just as much in the dark.
>
> It's kind of hard to explain if you don't create web pages or have  
> a familiarity with how they are written. But in a nutshell, web  
> pages written in pure HTML are static. Whenever you see a page that  
> does something dynamic -- buttons with different rollover states,  
> data that changes depending on live user input, dynamic content of  
> any type -- those actions must be scripted into the page using a  
> second, scripted language like JavaScript or PHP. The scripted  
> language is integrated into the same page as the HTML code and the  
> server interprets the scripts and shows you dynamic content.
>
> Up until now, anyone who wanted dynamic content on a web page had  
> to learn one of those other languages. What has just happened is  
> that Runtime has figured out a way to allow a web server to work  
> with our familiar xtalk, and allow that to be embedded into a web  
> page instead of one of the other languages. This is big stuff.
>
> The server needs to be set up in a particular way to allow this,  
> and as of now, only Runtime has that setup in place. They have made  
> their web service available so we can take advantage of this new  
> capability. Their setup pretty much matches industry standards in  
> terms of features and capability -- except for this remarkable  
> scripting feature which no one else has. There is nothing to lose  
> by changing to Runtime's web hosting service, and everything to  
> gain if you want to write web pages using the language we know and  
> love.
>
> For years now, the Rev engine has always had the capability to work  
> with a server as long as it was set up as a CGI service. This is a  
> complicated and tedious task in general, but once it was set up it  
> works well. (This method isn't going away, by the way. It will  
> still be functional for those who want it.) However, with the new  
> HTML-integrated capabilities, CGIs are no longer needed. You can  
> write HTML and Rev script in the same web page and your users will  
> see content based on whatever your scripts do. You don't have to  
> worry about any of the complexities of CGIs because none of that  
> matters any more (permissions, engines, Apache installation,  
> missing libraries, line endings, etc. All moot now.)
>
> Anyone who's had to work with the old-style CGIs will find the new  
> method liberating. One of the hardest things to do was debug a CGI;  
> it was very much like working with HC version 1.0 where the only  
> way to know what a variable contained was to put its contents into  
> the message box. If you got a script error, it was up to you to  
> figure out the problem, because the clues were sparse if they  
> existed at all. That's all over with now. RR provides a live  
> debugger that lets you step through the scripts on a web page just  
> as though you were working in a stack. That alone is worth the  
> price of admission for web page authors.
>
> For me, I haven't seen such a cool thing since I was gobsmacked by  
> the ability to run a stack from a remote server in one line of script.
>
> -- 
> Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
> HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com
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