[REBOL] q's regarding reb Re:(3)
Well done and thanks very much for that, very enlightening. I found your original post (http://rebol.org/userlist/archive/141/410.html) and having a look at it now. Cheers Brett. ... > I would have rather used ODBC, but it wasn't available. I am happy to say that > Rebol still came through for me and with a few days' effort was able to connect > to MSSql7 and do everything I needed. Rebol is much better than VB for most > things, > and with /View now becoming available I may be able to do most of my > programming in Rebol from now on. Wouldn't that be marvelous! > > -galt > > p.s. > I could re-post the code if people are interested. > I would have to chop out most of the actual app and > just leave the generic bits that are about talking to MSSql7 > and decoding it's response.
[REBOL] q's regarding reb Re:(2)
>> -galt >> >> p.s. I was so desperate to use Rebol that I hacked port 1433 to get into MS >> SQLServer 7. >Wassat?! Howd u do dat? And what did u achieve? :) >Brett. Well, I posted the code for it but got no response whatsoever. I assumed everybody had no interest in MSSql7. Basically, to the best of my knowlegde, MS has not documented the protocol they use, but you can figure most of it out for yourself, with some effort. This is the protocol that their odbc driver on the client uses to communicate with the server. It speaks MS's brand of SQL, which is standard enough for most purposes. The way I began hacking it was to set up a rebol program as a proxy that sat on some other port -- 9005 is what I used from some tcp example code -- and then used the client utility that came with sql7 to create a profile that used 9005 instead of the usual 1433. MS provides this ability to redirect to another port mainly to support getting around firewall servers and things like that. In any case, with a marvelous tcp-friendly tool like Rebol it wasn't long before I had my program sitting in the middle between the client on 9005 and SQL7 on 1433, as a proxy, watching the traffic and logging it. From there, it's basically just a process of dissecting the stream into meaningful bits. It wasn't particularly meant to be human-readable, but it was not too bad. If MS had encrypted the stream or something that would have made it much harder. I also just learned enough to process the kinds of requests that I would make in my app. You could probably equally well figure out any that I did not need to address. Largely I was logging on, changing the default db to access, doing various select statments, some create/drop table statements, some insert/delete/set/select into stuff for updating, and most of the data types I was working with were strings, although there were a couple of numbers and dates, plus I had to deal with memos, which are apparently always Unicode, and tables imported from MSAccess, which are also always in Unicode (2 byte/char). I also found out how to cancel a query that you are waiting for. If you start a bad query that will run forever, you must send the server a query-cancel on the connection, or else the stupid thing will keep on running, and tying up one of its licenses. I have a puny 15 or so, so eventually I ran out while debugging one day. Then I went back to the proxy to watch what happens when you start and then cancel a query. In any case, this is sufficient to get any version of Rebol connected today to MSSqlServer7. As a security note, tools like Rebol are going to make lazy administrators really sorry that they left in the "sa" user with no password, which is the default. You can just walk right up to the port and say, Gimme. I haven't tried it, but I imagine it would work. There is also one thing that is a little less than clean about the login request. It is one of the most complex requests and it was also the first one I had to overcome, so I actually just store the entire request while in proxy mode to a file, and then use it later to connect by spitting the whole thing at the server. It works. I don't even break it down into which bit means which. Since for my application it didn't matter, I didn't have to worry about that. After working with so many other bits of the stream, I could probably make pretty good guesses about it's structure now, but I haven't bothered. The two elements of the login request that you might want to change are the login and password. I think that they try to hide the password so it's not passed in clear text in the stream, but I doubt it's super hard to figure out what the pattern is. I never needed to, as this program is just for an internal process, and is not going to be installed at any customer site. I would have rather used ODBC, but it wasn't available. I am happy to say that Rebol still came through for me and with a few days' effort was able to connect to MSSql7 and do everything I needed. Rebol is much better than VB for most things, and with /View now becoming available I may be able to do most of my programming in Rebol from now on. Wouldn't that be marvelous! -galt p.s. I could re-post the code if people are interested. I would have to chop out most of the actual app and just leave the generic bits that are about talking to MSSql7 and decoding it's response.
[REBOL] q's regarding reb Re:(2)
> > Do we have a hint yet how much it is going to cost? > > Surprise, surprise, AFAI /View's supposed to be completely free :-) It's confirmed on the rebol web site too. :-) Andrew Martin ICQ: 26227169 http://members.xoom.com/AndrewMartin/ -><-
[REBOL] q's regarding reb Re:
> -galt > > p.s. I was so desperate to use Rebol that I hacked port 1433 to get into MS > SQLServer 7. Wassat?! Howd u do dat? And what did u achieve? :) Brett.
[REBOL] q's regarding reb Re:(2)
I really really hope that is the case. I've been thinking how Rebol/View is so well designed to create a whole new kind of programming - polished user-specific (i.e one-off) sent via email, etc. for support or specific "rich email app" functionality. Brett. - Original Message - From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 8:12 AM Subject: [REBOL] q's regarding reb Re: > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > /View is very exciting!! > > > > Carl, > > > > Do we have a hint yet how much it is going to cost? > > Surprise, surprise, AFAI /View's supposed to be completly free :-) > > -pekr- > > -galt > > > > > p.s. I was so desperate to use Rebol that I hacked port 1433 to get into MS > > SQLServer 7. > > Please don't make me do that again, even though it was fun. >
[REBOL] q's regarding reb Re:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > /View is very exciting!! > > Carl, > > Do we have a hint yet how much it is going to cost? Surprise, surprise, AFAI /View's supposed to be completly free :-) -pekr- -galt > > p.s. I was so desperate to use Rebol that I hacked port 1433 to get into MS > SQLServer 7. > Please don't make me do that again, even though it was fun.
[REBOL] q's regarding reb
/View is very exciting!! Carl, Do we have a hint yet how much it is going to cost? At the company I work for we develop software that is used by large corporations with thousands of users, and my guess is they don't want to pay major dinero for a license for each person. With VB programs in the old days we could pay the devil, I mean MS, a bit o money and then they didn't care how many times we distributed our compiled programs. Sometimes it's not even the money, just the sheer headache of keeping track of how many people they have using the program that gets to be unworkable. I know that there are some fancy licensing things tools but as our friend recently wrote, we like to simplicize. Right now we are using the web more and more and that's good, but some programs don't fit the web interface well, and dynamic html can be both inadequate and suffering from netscape/ie/etc. compatiblity problems. Played with Java some, but not exactly happy with where it's at. It would be nice under these circumstances to be able to ditch VB exe's on the client side and use Rebol/View. But I have no idea how much it costs or whether you might offer some more flexible options in future. My boss would just be interested in delivering an application, not caring about how we did it, as long as it worked - of course he's not carrying a torch for Rebol, either. We have never had great cross-platform abilities in the past - the web has come the closest to making that possible - so rebol would be a nice bonus in the sense that you'd be able to say to clients, sure it works on Mac and Unix, too. (We are a Windoze shop, of course). In any case, will there be any hope of having affordable distributable rebol/view app for guys like us who sell to the corporate clients but are not staff people at the corporations? MS largely ignores companies like us. We are not making software for individuals, nor are we staff developers at some corporate site building internal functionality. We need maximum crossplatform and ease of install and use and distribution at a reasonable cost and low support/maintainence. Anyway, I know that your focus is on enabling the people and that means letting people make and run their own scripts, etc. But people like my boss have no interest in that. They are just trying to find a means to an end, the app. Thanks for addressing my question, -galt p.s. I was so desperate to use Rebol that I hacked port 1433 to get into MS SQLServer 7. Please don't make me do that again, even though it was fun.
