RevServer deployment on OSX Server

[J. Landman Gay]

On 2/18/11 1:41 PM, Keith Clarke wrote:
> Thanks for the clarification Jaque. So, I already had the current
> LiveCode server before I 'invested' in the revServer myth.

Depends on what we're talking about. You asked about feature parity; in 
that respect, 3.5 and 4.x are similar as far as what you can do with 
server-side scripting and the engine itself. There are bug fixes in 4.x 
of course and some added commands and syntax that might be useful 
depending on what you need to do.

But as far as use and interface, the two are quite different. I find 
RevServer to be far easier to work with, debug, and write code for. I 
can use includes, CSS, and other native HTML features. Avoiding the 
older CGI tedium is a huge plus. Like I said, if you have ever tried to 
debug a CGI you are in for some major hair-pulling. And constructing 
HTML from a CGI is tedious, verbose, and often requires templates stored 
on the server which have to be read in and altered by script. Generating 
HTML from a CGI requires pages of "&quote&" syntax or merges. And then 
there is the astronomical number of trips back and forth between your 
server error logs -- which tell you almost nothing about what's really 
wrong -- and your text editor, which is where you'll be writing your 
scripts.

When using irev, everything is integrated on one page. The HTML is 
native and doesn't need to be generated. You can mix normal HTML with LC 
scripting as needed. No translations or merges are necessary. Irev 
allows you to set a global flag that will put error messages right into 
the browser where you can read what's wrong immediately. IRev pages load 
as normal URLs like other web pages, without needing to call out to the 
CGI-bin directory.

If I never have to look at a server error log again, it will be too 
soon. The very first irev page I made was a re-make of an older CGI. Let 
me look that up...

Old CGI required:
   In CGI-bin folder:
     CGI text script to run everything (about 30 lines)
     Text file of image names
     Text file HTML template, for merging with generated output
   In web directory:
     Folder of images to display
     HTML page containing an iFrame to display CGI output

New iRev page requires (all in web directory):
   HTML-irev page with 2 lines of LiveCode script
   Text file of image names
   Folder of images to display

The page in action is here: 
<http://jacque.on-rev.com/codebits/flowerscgi.irev>. There's a link to 
my CGI tutorial there too if you want to see what's involved with those.

Sorry this got so long.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com