Re: CGI/Perl vs. Middleware

On Wed, 18 Sep 1996, Steve Mintz wrote:
> My opinion is that CGI/Perl is "old school" and that the future of client/server 
> www functionality is clearly based on in-process middleware solutions.

And in-process solutions based on DLLs/Shared Libraries make debugging so 
much more entertaining too. ;-)

The halfway house that I like (as used on AOLserver, and soon to be added 
to Apache) is a scripting language built in as a server module. At least 
then you can take the script out of the server and into a seperate 
interpreter if you need to debug it. Depending on the scripting language 
(Perl/TCL/etc.) you aren't buying into one vendor quite so much either.

Another detour from the two main paths is Bluestone Sapphire whic h
generates a CGI or (soon/now) FastCGI application binary. FastCGI gives 
you most of the benefits of an API, but the OS still protects your 
application from the server, and vice versa.

A (slightly) related point: 

Does anyone know of an 'offline' version of MS IDBC that can process the 
same templates and query files but as a command line?




--
Howard Jones                                   HELP! MY TYPEWRITER IS BROKEN!
Voss Net Plc.                                                  - E.E.CUMMINGS
Internet: hjones@vossnet.co.uk 
http://www.vossnet.co.uk/people/Howard/index.html

Received on Wednesday, 18 September 1996 12:26:15 UTC