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[Q] In-Browser technology

Cameron Laird claird at starbase.neosoft.com
Mon Jul 19 20:30:27 EDT 1999 
In article <932337314.611.103 at news.remarQ.com>,
Vladik <reason at shadow.net> wrote:
>Hello,
>Sorry for cross-posting, but
>my question is really to the people on the news groups
>who know about Eiffel, Python and Perl.
>
>Basically,
>We are to develop a web client (a program that
>can be ran witting a web browser) for our otherwise n-tier
>cross-platform system, our research department gave the
>recommendation and actually a prototype of the client
>in MS ASP (active server pages) and, I think but not
>sure, blended with Visual Basic. Talk about bias...
>But this means that it can only run in MS IE and not
>in Netscape, also it limits the number of platforms not only
>for the client on which web browser runs, but also for
>the web server (MS platforms only, because web server with
>active pages can only run there)
>There is some talk about Java, but our web client
>will also be ran via Serial links (not T1 connections)
>on relatively inexpensive systems -- therefore Java is
>something to look into but it may be slow.
>So I am set on a quest to find something
>that
>a) can be executed within IE or Netscape,
>b) be faster and overall more resource friendly then JavaScript technology
>c) supports OO programming
>d) does not depend on the platform on which web server is running.( if the
>web server is running NT or UNIX (sun, linux)
>
>I have found one thing that almost satisfies the requirements:
>it is based on Oberon-2 programming language and so far sounds
>VERY promising.
>  The reason why I am still looking is because
>there are more books and internet support for Python,Perl and Eiffel
>then for Oberon (this will be a factor when presenting the proposal
>to the management).  The other problem is that there is plugin
>for this technology available for NT and Mac platforms (for both
>IE and Netscape) and is not available for UNIX platforms (which means that a
>web browser can not be ran on UNIX). There is source code,
>though.
>If interested: http://caesar.ics.uci.edu/juice/
>
>So, finally, my question is is there a technology
>I am looking for available for either Perl or Eiffel or Python
			.
			.
			.
No.

That's the short answer.  Slightly longer is this:  I
don't understand--although I'm sufficiently intrigued
to answer.

Let's first dispose of the part of my reply where I
pick nits from your description:
1.  "We are to develop a web client (a
    program that can be ran witting a
    web browser) ..." evokes to me a
    plugin.  Is a plugin (supposing a
    sufficiently potent one exists)
    exactly what meets your require-
    ments, or is there a point I'm
    missing?
2.  "... a prototype of the client 
    in MS ASP (active server pages)
    and, I think but not sure, blended
    with Visual Basic ..."  I have no
    definite idea of what you're say-
    ing here.  Is it that your
    customer has a picture of the
    visual appearance of the desired
    deliverable?  What is there about
    the ASP prototype that does *not*
    meet the requirements?  Is VB
    blended on the server or client
    side?  Does it matter?  Is it really
    VB, or VBScript?
3.  Are you aware that *lots* of browsers
    read pages served as ASP?  You can
    use ASP without requiring IE.
4.  "... Java ... may be slow."  Lots of
    things may be slow.  The market-lead-
    ing browsers are definitely pigs, by
    my standards, but they've already
    been mandated, according to your
    description.

    Technical point:  Java applets work
    well for me.  Invariably, when I hear
    people complain about the size of
    Java applets, they're really com-
    plaining about ancillary images.
    Java executable classes themselves
    are admirably compact, in my experi-
    ence.
5.  Of what resource is JavaScript not
    sufficiently conservative?  Do you
    seriously have performance problems
    with it?  There are plenty of aspects
    of JavaScript that deserve scorn,
    but, unless I have a specific issue,
    I happily use it to accomplish real
    work on the client side.
6.  How much client-side programming are
    you doing?  Why does object-orienta-
    tion there matter to you?
7.  What technologies do you want that
    *do* link client and server platform
    compatibility?  I can't make this
    constraint informative in the context
    of everything else you've written.
8.  What's the part about Juice that you
    like--is it the promise of superior
    performance?  Do Franz and Kistler
    truly make source available?  I
    hadn't noticed that.  In any case, if
    I thought it'd help with one of my
    projects, I'd write them directly.

    I'm fond of Oberon, and I wish Juice
    well.  I don't understand your inter-
    est in it.

It sounds as though you're involved in quite an ambi-
tious project, of the sort I like.  I wish you well.
I suspect you'll do well to clarify several of your
requirements; this will make it much more inviting for
comp.lang.* readers to help you.
-- 

Cameron Laird           http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
claird at NeoSoft.com      +1 281 996 8546 FAX
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