Re: [Webware-discuss] New documentation: Application Development

[Ian B. <ia...@co...>]

That's a good list -- it would probably belong more to the installation 
documentation, which is separate (though it needs work too).  The 
choices are mostly pragmatic.  But it's a vague line -- obviously, 
setting up various AppServers and such is an installation issue as well, 
and ApplicationDevelopment.txt could flow in either direction (towards 
setting Webware up, or towards developing Webware/Python web 
applications).  I'm making another document (WebKit/Docs/Tutorial.txt) 
which covers the web application portion -- though for an inexperienced 
user.

Actually, I guess it's that there's two kinds of documents -- one which 
describes how you can do something (reference), and one which suggests 
how you should do something (a guide).  ApplicationDevelopment is 
intended to be a guide, and as such could probably cover most of 
installation, but in a non-complete manner.  In my opinion, only 
mod_webkit and wkcgi are worth introducing (though I haven't used 
standalone PSP pages, so I don't know about how that should best work).  
Some mod_rewrite documentation should also be included (I believe 
Quixote has some).  Then we'd ignore thinks like WebKit.cgi, 
OneShot.cgi, ModPythonAdapter.py, etc.  Those are options, but for 95%+ 
of people mod_webkit or wkcgi are the right solution, and so I think 
they should be emphasized.

Complete (and structured) reference documentation is also very 
important, but that's another issue...


On Thursday, December 26, 2002, at 01:49 PM, Stuart Donaldson wrote:
> Ian, Looks good, here are some comments.
>
> There are a couple of significantly different ways to setup and run 
> Webware.
>
> 	1) Use of global access to Webware with mod_webkit and httpd.conf
> 	referring a path such as /WK to Webware.
>
> 	2) Use of global access to Webware/PSP with mod_webkit and
> 	httpd.conf redirecting .psp pages to Webware.  However this
> 	does not currently work with PSP documents under ~user
> 	locations.
>
> 	3) Localized access where the .htaccess file redirects references
> 	through the webkit-handler. Requires mod_webkit be installed
> 	globally in httpd.conf but allows .htaccess references to
> 	unique Webware AppServer by specifying the port to use. Note
> 	that this may currently have problems with ~user expansion too.
>
> 	4) Localized access to PSP through psp-handler references
> 	in .htaccess file.  Requires mod_webkit be installed globally
> 	but allows .htaccess to reference a unique AppServer instance
> 	by specifying the port to use.  Note that this is broken
> 	currently when using ~user expansion, but a fix is in the works.
>
> 	5) Access through WebKit.cgi. I am not clear of the issues here
> 	but believe there may be some problems with ~user expansion
> 	here as well.
>
> 	6) Access through OneShot.cgi
>
> The options 1 and 2 above seem to be common.  However I believe that the
> other options also have value, especially if an ISP wants to offer 
> Webware,
> and allow users to reference their own instance of Webware.
> The problems I pointed out with the ~user expansion tell me that  
> currently,
> not many people are trying to use it in that type of an environment.  
> But I
> think the potential for large scale use there is high.
>
> I think it would be useful for the descriptions of setting up the
> environment to outline the various ways in which Webware can be 
> invoked, and
> provide a brief description.
>
> Also, given the discussions around referencing python vs python2, and 
> the
> requirement for python2, I think this should be clearly addressed.
> Unfortunately some distro's (RedHat) have "python" invoking python 1.5.2
> still.  That will cause problems for someone unless we automagically 
> fix it
> to reference python2.
>
> -Stuart-