GNUe Traffic #1 For 3�Nov�2001

By Peter Sullivan

Table Of Contents

• Standard Format
• Text Format
• XML Source
• Introduction
• Threads Covered

  1.	23�Oct�2001		A new release of DCL
  2.	24�Oct�2001		GNUe Common vs. GNU Comm project
  3.	24�Oct�2001�-�28�Oct�2001		Web shopping cart using GNU Enterprise Application Server
  4.	25�Oct�2001		DCL as a communication tool
  5.	26�Oct�2001		Using GNUe in real projects
  6.	26�Oct�2001		GNUe Application Server and database triggers
  7.	26�Oct�2001�-�27�Oct�2001		GNUe, Python 2 and GNU/Hurd
  8.	27�Oct�2001�-�29�Oct�2001		GNUe Application Server and Windows
  9.	28�Oct�2001�-�29�Oct�2001		GNUe Forms and GNUe Application Server driver
  10.	29�Oct�2001		Non-Implemented Keywords
  11.	29�Oct�2001		Syntax for Explicit References
  12.	29�Oct�2001		Andrew Murie's Profiling Code

Introduction

1. A new release of DCL

23�Oct�2001�Archive Link: "[IRC] 23 Oct 2001"

Topics: DCL

People: Michael Dean

Michael Dean (mdean) said that "a new release (feature wise) is probably about 3 or 4 weeks away," since the database upgrade was going to be huge. As of this writing, he may make an interim bug fix/small feature release to get some of the email support down.

2. GNUe Common vs. GNU Comm project

24�Oct�2001�Archive Link: "[IRC] 24 Oct 2001"

Topics: Common

People: Daniel Baumann,�Jason Cater,�Derek Neighbors

Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) pointed out that "this abstraction thingy GComm" could be confused with the GNU Comm project. But as far as Jason Cater (jcater) was concerned, "GComm is our internal package name... to the external world, it's GNUe Common," but said that was a good point. Later, Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) explained that pyro was an object system like GComm would be, written "by the same guys that wrote pygmy, the python email client."

3. Web shopping cart using GNU Enterprise Application Server

24�Oct�2001�-�28�Oct�2001�Archive Link: "[IRC] 24 Oct 2001"

Topics: Sales, Forms

People: Charles Rouzer,�Daniel Baumann,�Michael Maluck,�Jason Cater

Charles Rouzer (Mr_You) needed "a production quality GNUe web shopping cart ;-)" . Instead, he was looking to customize Interchange to provide a web shopping cart using PHP. Jason Cater (jcater) said that, although GNUe Inventory was not yet completed, you should be able to access another inventory package via GNUe Applications Server. However, the web interface for GNUe Forms was still in the works, as Michael Maluck (madlocke) had been quite ill.

Four days later (http://www.gnuenterprise.org/irc-logs/gnue-public.log.28Oct2001) , Charles asked if anyone had seen Michael Maluck (madlocke). Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) wanted to know "did he ever give up the code for this web forms stuff? Or it still a mystical imaginary animal?"

4. DCL as a communication tool

25�Oct�2001�Archive Link: "[IRC] 25 Oct 2001"

Topics: DCL

People: Derek Neighbors,�Michael Dean

Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) was seeing "a GREAT value in DCL as a communication tool to customers," and as a billing tool and todo tool. But the communication tool would break when accounts had different products. It would be fairly easy to implement who-can-view-what by product, but then the next step would become billing (or services), at which point products and services would need to be 'separate'. This hadn't mattered before DCL was seen as a communications tool. Michael Dean (mdean) thought this use of services "sounds like it could be an action." He planned to be work on it "(minus billing) for work, so it will come."

5. Using GNUe in real projects

26�Oct�2001�Archive Link: "[IRC] 26 Oct 2001"

Topics: Why GNUe?

People: Derek Neighbors,�Jason Cater

Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) had written "a contact manager to do assignments" for GNUe; and Jason Cater had a fully functional 40 node call centre. The call centre was not using Bayonne, although they would like to. Derek reckoned GNUe was about the best GPL-licensed system he had seen for RAPID development of cross platform applications. There were about 5 active developers, 10 more regular contributors, 30 people with assignments and several hundred on the mailing lists. There was no date for GNUe Accounting, but work was starting on it now.

6. GNUe Application Server and database triggers

26�Oct�2001�Archive Link: "[IRC] 26 Oct 2001"

Topics: Application Server

People: Derek Neighbors

It was asked if GNUe Application Server (GEAS) uses database triggers or did triggers itself. Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) said "it could really do either." They were also looking to support load balancing and replication in GEAS. But if your database supported it, you could have load balancing occuring behind GEAS. But several people thought that load balancing with GEAS could be complicated.

7. GNUe, Python 2 and GNU/Hurd

26�Oct�2001�-�27�Oct�2001�Archive Link: "[IRC] 26 Oct 2001"

People: Daniel Baumann,�Andrew Mitchell,�Jeff Bailey

Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) confirmed that GNUe needs Python 2 - "er, the python stuff does anyway."

The next day (http://www.gnuenterprise.org/irc-logs/gnue-public.log.26Oct2001) , Andrew Mitchell (ajmitch) asked if GNUe stuff "works on GNU/Hurd." Jeff Bailey (jbailey) said GNU/Hurd did not have Python 2 as of time of writing.

8. GNUe Application Server and Windows

27�Oct�2001�-�29�Oct�2001�Archive Link: "[IRC] 27 Oct 2001"

Topics: Application Server

People: Derek Neighbors,�Jeff Bailey,�Daniel Baumann,�Neil Tiffin,�Reinhard M�ller,�Jason Cater

Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) claimed GNUe Applications Server (GEAS) is Windows ready, but "depends on orbit" which didn't do Windows well - he wanted to move to omniORB. Jason Cater was feverishly working on gcomm, an RPC abstraction mechanism that would give lots of flexibility.

Two days later, (http://www.gnuenterprise.org/irc-logs/gnue-public.log.27Oct2001) , Jeff Bailey (jbailey) noted that GEAS "doesn't seem to compile under windows because of the orbit dependancy." He asked if there was a timeframe for fixing that. Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) said no. Jeff said this meant he couldn't make GEAS part of the win32 package. Daniel said that " GEAS only runs on GNU/Linux and *BSD" - " and mac os X" , interjected Neil Tiffin (neilt). Daniel said that "porting GEAS to windows is not a priority right now." However, "gobject and orbit2 are both thread safe now and pretty functional" . Reinhard M�ller (reinhard) had compiled orbit under Windows, "but never run any program"

9. GNUe Forms and GNUe Application Server driver

28�Oct�2001�-�29�Oct�2001�Archive Link: "[IRC] 28 Oct 2001"

Topics: Forms, Application Server

People: Vsevolod Lobko,�Charles Rouzer,�Reinhard M�ller,�Peter Sullivan,�James Thompson,�ra3vat,�Dmitry Sorokin

Vsevolod Lobko (sevik) asked "does anybody have working gnuef+geas setup ?" Dmitry Sorokin (ra3vat) said that he had some problems after re-installing and had not tested it for a while. They discussed this further in Russian.

(ed. [Peter Sullivan] I haven't attempted a translation. )

Later on, Charles Rouzer (Mr_You) said it was currently alpha, "hang out here and help us out and we'll help you out ;-)" Vsevolod said that "in methods like next_record/etc there are print 'something' instead of actual code" .

The next day (http://www.gnuenterprise.org/irc-logs/gnue-public.log.28Oct2001) , Vsevolod asked Reinhard M�ller (reinhard) what the current state of the driver was. Reinhard said that James Thompson had started it, "but has been mad goat raped in the middle of the development process" . Vsevolod asked if it had ever worked. Reinhard said:

Vsevolod confirmed it does not work now "Even retrieving of data from geas" . Reinhard said he was the maintainer of GEAS, but that he had not had time to look at it for 2 months now due to job overload.

10. Non-Implemented Keywords

29�Oct�2001�Archive Link: "[IRC] 29 Oct 2001"

Topics: Application Server

People: Reinhard M�ller,�Neil Tiffin

Reinhard M�ller (reinhard) suggested taking out the PUBLIC and PRIVATE keywords as we have no real use for them now - " or we will end up with a lot of non-implemented keywords just like before" . Neil Tiffin (neilt) agreed to "taking everything out that is not fully implemented, unless it will be implemented in the next few tasks we are working on" . Reinhard asked if this applied to READONLY as well. Neil replied that he was not sure. Reinhard will investigate what READONLY does now.

11. Syntax for Explicit References

29�Oct�2001�Archive Link: "[IRC] 29 Oct 2001"

Topics: Application Server

People: Reinhard M�ller,�Neil Tiffin

Reinhard M�ller (reinhard) asked about "the current syntax for explicit reference" . Explicit references were needed, but neither Reinhard or Neil Tiffin (neilt) were happy with the current syntax for them. Reinhard proposed a "changed REFERENCE syntax in gcd: REFERENCE refname WHERE thisfield [=<>!] otherclass.otherfield;"

Neil said this needed to work for lists as well - "and a reference is just a list with one entry" . Reinhard suggested, "Actually both could be combined by a sorta RELATION keyword which is [...] n : m where n and m can be 1 or more than 1. For implicit we still need both * and [] but for explicit I think we could replace both REFERENCE and LIST with RELATION. "

12. Andrew Murie's Profiling Code

29�Oct�2001�Archive Link: "[IRC] 29 Oct 2001"

Topics: Application Server

People: Reinhard M�ller,�Neil Tiffin,�Daniel Baumann

Reinhard M�ller (reinhard) asked "Shall we keep andrewm's profiling code, or shall we remove it?" Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) and Neil Tiffin (neilt) both thought it was unnecessary. Neil suggested contacting Andrew to "see why he did that - there must have been a reason." Daniel said he would ask "some hurd hackers" for further pointers.

Later on, Reinhard suggested using gprof, which " gives you statistics about time spent in each function as well as number of calls for each function sorted by the worst functions first (those eating most time) and lots of other stuff. Plus you can break it down to lines of code instead of functions. The only thing is it only measures cpu time not the time the process waits for disk access or network traffic" . By contrast, Andrew's "profiling code measures the RealWorld(tm) time spent in a function [...] which is a very inaccurate thing in a multi process operating system" . However, Reinhard would not remove the profiling stuff without Neil's feedback.

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