Tommi,
> On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Miguel Howard wrote:
>
>> If Ghemical does not have a server then I recommend that you access it
>> through a .cgi on a web server.
>
> There is no such server yet. However, the latest version in CVS works as
> a bonobo component (bonobo is the gnome component system).
I am not familiar with bonobo.
> There is a
> simple "ghemical" app that is just a bonobo container that contains an
> object, which is provided by a more complicated app "ghemical-server".
> My initial plan is that one could start ghemical-server using a special
> argument like
>
> ghemical-server --socketserver 500
>
> that would not start it as a bonobo server but instead would make it
> listen the port 500.
read below ...
>> I believe the web server approach has a number of advantages. If you
>> start writing your own server then you may get bogged down with a
>> number of issues that are unrelated to the problem you are trying to
>> solve.
>>
>> I don't have much time right now ... but we can talk later.
>
> Yep, it should be able to handle many requests simultaneously, probably
> by starting them as separate threads. On the other hand if the web
> server could launch it similarly using arguments like
>
> ghemical-server --remoteclient some_other_arguments
>
> it would be almost equivalent. It would be slightly slower since at
> start ghemical-server reads in several parameter files. Unfortunately
> I'm not familiar with cgi and web servers.
Here is my opinion, based upon my experience ...
I believe that your time would be *very* well spent learning a little
about cgis.
- it won't take long
- it will save you a lot of pain and suffering
- learning about CGIs and web servers is a skill which
is *much* more valuable and reusable skill than
learning how to write a server process
You can write a very simple CGI that can launch your command line
arguments ... You will be able to find plenty of documentation on the web
... I will even write it for you if you want.
Some comments:
- a web server gives you for free
* multithreading
* usage tracking/logging
* better ability to block/control access (if needed)
* automatic 'ghemical-server' restart when the machine
is rebooted
- much easier to test and develop
* better debugging support
* run your tools from the command line if you want
- a clear and easy path to scalability
- the starting of the application each time is an advantage
* you don't need to worry about memory leaks
* you don't need to worry about what happens if your
server crashes
* I assume that ghemical does a bunch of calculations ...
then the startup time should be insignificant
* evalute and address any 'startup' problems once you
are sure they are a problem
- strange ports cause problems with firewalls
* this is a major problem for corporations that have
firewalls
- easier for others to run
* running a strange server/daemon process on a machine
is a much bigger deal than running a CGI.
Let me know if you need more reasons :-)
Clearly this is your project and you should do what you want. But my
strong recommendation is that you seriously evaluate the web-server
approach.
Miguel
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