I built a couple large, well-trafficed sites with Aolserver, TCL and a bit
of ACS in the past year and now I'm moving to Tomcat / Java.
It's not about buzzwords.. the J2EE model isn't perfect, but it does
provide a very clear interface (JSP) / logic (EJB) / data (DB) model that
is just as good as Aolserver's (ADPs + TCL).
Further Enterprise Java Beans make websites that are
reading >>>> writing
much faster because a DB call isn't made every time a user hits a
page. DB calls are 1,000 - 10,000 times slower than a call to a java bean
which is acting as an abstraction of the database.
But regardless, if I were you I wouldn't start any new projects in
AolServer: despite all the great help the community has given me (and I
hope I've returned), it seems to be disbanding and who knows how long AOL
will keep it 'open-source'?
Good luck with whichever tool you use, though.
-T
On Mon, 30 Apr 2001, Alan Wright wrote:
> Having just completed a site using using Apache/Tomcat/Interbase (
> http://www.free-minder.com ) at the end of last year I came across Greenspun's
> book.
>
> We spent many unproductive hours evaluating whether to use this or that buzzword
> compliant technology. Next we had to try to configure an entire software circus
> to address a programming model that was solved 40 years ago by IBM with the 3270
> terminal. Greenspun's evangelism of the no-nonsense AOLServer + TCL really hit
> me between the eyes and I was convinced that my next project would go down this
> route.
>
> As we pull together the threads of our next project I am slightly dismayed to
> learn of the disputes at the top of Arsdigita as we were planning to use the ACS
> system as a springboard to which we would add our subscription based
> application.
>
> My main concern is the porting of the ACS system to Java. To me this looks
> rather like a fashion statement and is something I would seek to avoid because
> it will surely just add another tent to the circus.
>
> Is the future direction of AOLServer likely to incorporate integrated Java (and
> move away from TCL)?
>
> Can we safely base our software infrastructure strategy on AOLServer + TCL (with
> or without ACS) or does the ARSDigita move towards java presage a similar shift
> in AOLServer?
>
> Alan Wright
>
