devcon 2022 recap

[Richard Gaskin]

Mark Talluto wrote:

 > I am happy to say that Richard Gaskin is our first 3rd party provider.
 > He wants to make connections for many things external. Databases is
 > top on the list the last time we spoke. I’ll ping him to chime in with
 > more details.


Thank you, Mark.

The current vision for the plugin is to provide at least basic CRUD 
operations for SQL DBs, which would of course mean MySQL with postgreSQL 
and MariaDB coming along for the ride. Some form of this could become an 
LC tool as well as an Appli component.

The opportunity is obvious: it's nice to have a convenient UI for 
accessing organizational data ponds.

The challenges are two-fold: providing consistent access across what may 
be a wide range of DB API styles depending on IT habits within 
prospective orgs, and authentication methods those orgs support.


DB Access:

The challenge with this is identifying applicable use cases. Where orgs 
using Appli or LiveCode may allow internal direct access to DBs, this is 
a relatively simple matter, as the socket comms for those are consistent.

But most orgs use HTTP-based APIs for DB operations. This is popular 
even for internal use, and usually consider necessary for all 
connections from the open Internet.

Over the coming months we'll be discussing needs with prospective 
customers to identify API patterns to see where we can provide a UI that 
allows them to easily drop in URLs needed for access.  It may be that 
we'll have to offer a setup service to get less technically-inclined 
customers going, but some orgs may not provide external API access for 
internal APIs. We'll see how that unfolds as we learn more about use cases.


Authentication:

Where API authentication is done through httpBasic or OAuth2, LC's 
excellent support for both makes those straightforward.  But many larger 
orgs use LDAP for authentication.

So far I've not seen an LDAP library for LC, and having reviewed the 
LDAP specs it seems a task worth thinking about very carefully before 
committing to delivery.

If any of you know of an LDAP authentication library for LC Script that 
would be very helpful.


More to come as research on this unfolds...

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com