GNUe Traffic #20 For 16 Mar 2002
By Peter Sullivan
Free Dmitry aftermath - " I was at work yesterday and the CFO of our company
asked me what the bumper sticker on the back of my car (the one that reads
"Coding is Not a Crime") means. And I told him, "Oh, I dunno. It helps me get
girls." And err he started laughing... "
Table Of Contents
* Standard Format
* Text Format
* XML Source
* Introduction
* Threads Covered
1. 4 Mar 2002 - 11 Mar 2002 (3 GNUe Application Server (GEAS)
posts) version 2
2. 5 Mar 2002 - 6 Mar 2002 (3 uuid header file for GNUe Application
posts) Server
3. 7 Mar 2002 Naming conventions in GNUe
Application Server
4. 7 Mar 2002 Debian packages for GNUe
5. 8 Mar 2002 Document Management for GNUe
6. 10 Mar 2002 - 12 Mar 2002 (3 ERP Standards
posts)
7. 11 Mar 2002 - 13 Mar 2002 (4 GNUe Project Management
posts)
8. 11 Mar 2002 - 13 Mar 2002 (5 GNUe Application Server API
posts)
9. 11 Mar 2002 Status of GNUe Applications
10. 11 Mar 2002 GNUe Reports proposal
11. 12 Mar 2002 GNUe Kernel Cousins on linuxtoday
12. 12 Mar 2002 - 13 Mar 2002 i18n support in GNUe Forms
13. 12 Mar 2002 Wizard changes in Designer
14. 13 Mar 2002 DCL and GNUe Enterprise
15. 13 Mar 2002 2-tier vs. n-tier applications
Introduction
This Cousin covers the three main mailing lists for the GNU Enterprise project,
gnue, gnue-dev and gnue-announce. For more information about GNUe, see their
home page at http://www.gnuenterprise.org (http://www.gnuenterprise.org) .
Details of the mailing lists can be found at http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/
listinfo/gnue (http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnue) , http://mail.gnu.org
/mailman/listinfo/gnue-dev (http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnue-dev) ,
http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnue-announce (http://mail.gnu.org/mailman
/listinfo/gnue-announce) .
It also covers the #gnuenterprise IRC channel. A great deal of development
discussion for this project goes on in IRC. You can find #gnuenterprise on
irc.openprojects.net:6667, or you can review the logs at http://
www.gnuenterprise.org/irc-logs/ (http://www.gnuenterprise.org/irc-logs/) .
1. GNUe Application Server (GEAS) version 2
4 Mar 2002 - 11 Mar 2002 (3 posts) Archive Link: "[Gnue-dev] GEAS is dead. Long
live GEAS."
Topics: Financials (Accounting)
People: Reinhard M?ller, Charles Rouzer, Daniel Baumann, Derek Neighbors
Reinhard M?ller officially announed " the decision to rewrite the GNU
Enterprise Application Server from scratch. The rewrite will take place in
python. We have decided to keep the acronym "GEAS"." There was a whitepaper (
http://www.gnuenterprise.org/~reinhard/whitepaper) available for comments. "The
next step would be to define the interface GEAS shows against the front end" ,
which would be done in the next few days/weeks. Charles Rouzer suggested "I
would like security and authentication seperated in the white paper" , as
authentication could be done via the database back-end, whilst security could
be done using "Role Base Access Control (RBAC)" , which could be tied "into
future OSs that also implement RBAC" , as previously discussed. Reinhard agreed
these were important, but said they were both aspects of " the single big and
important goal that the system must be secure." However, " I am 100% sure we
will come back on viewing these points seperate as soon as we talk about
implementation details." .
Some days later, on IRC (http://www.gnuenterprise.org/irc-logs/
gnue-public.log.09Mar2002) , Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) asked " what are the
current geas assignments?" . Derek Neighbors (derek) said "we need to use DCL
for our todos - i think the big current item is to document common" . Daniel
was keen to do some work on API design - this would be for 'internal' APIs
within GEAs "or comething that will go in common if we chose to put it there" .
Reinhard M?ller (reinhard) suggested basing any API proposals on "neilt's
drawing" . He said "the most important interface is what GEAS (as a whole)
shows against forms - the "external" API of geas so to speak" . Daniel
suggested "I would think for that forms would use OQL" , adding "ODMG has a
bunch of interfaces" . Reinhard suggested "i think we must discuss with jamest
what would make most sense to him" .
Reinhard confirmed that Derek had requested "GEASv2 still is named geas - and
said that it would be no problem to remove all docs from the web and everywhere
that refer to the first implementation and are not longer valid - however i'd
like to ask who will do this removement" .
Daniel suggested "we should fiogure out what parts are "common" to geas
arhitecture - probably security and protoclo adapters can be factored out into
common" . He suggested "I think the diagram could be much refined
altogether...maybe that's what I'll start with, breaking things down further" .
Reinhard said "that's why i think we need a lot of communication with jcater
and jamest - much more than before" . Daniel agreed - "we shooting toward a
much more integrated GNUe :) [...] this is good for unity, because too long
have various parts just been "distant" - it was like talk to me at an arms
length (CORBA)" .
Two days later (http://www.gnuenterprise.org/irc-logs/gnue-public.log.11Mar2002
) , Reinhard confirmed that "the geas that is currently in the downloads area
or in cvs is the "old" incarnation and we have stopped development on that. A
complete rewrite from scratch is just about to be started" . This meant that
any time spent trying to get the existing GNUe Application Server (GEAS) to run
would likely be wasted. He said "i guess what i'm saying is - there is no
"geas" at the moment - the old has died - the new has not yet been born - but
keep your eyes open - the new one will arrive soon :)" On timescales, he noted
" currently all of GNU Enterprise is volunteer work - we all do it in our spare
time" . However, "remember you can use GNU Enterprise in 2-tier and in n-tier
mode - 2-tier means forms talks directly to database - this is very usable
already and it is used in production at several places" .
On the new GEAS, Reinhard thought "it will be some months until that
constellation is usabel in production" , but this could be speeded up
considerably if an external company was willing to lend programmers to help. He
said "the new incarnation of the application server will be written in python -
however python is very easy to learn" , and boasted "i still have to see the
man that started to learn python and did not like it :)" . Derek (dneighbo)
said that there was no real documentation on the new GEAS yet, but there was
"some 'precusory' stuff" on the website (http://www.gnuenterprise.org/~reinhard
/whitepaper/) .
2. uuid header file for GNUe Application Server
5 Mar 2002 - 6 Mar 2002 (3 posts) Archive Link: "[gnue-geas] ./configure error"
Topics: Application Server
People: Emmanuel Salvador, Jens M?ller, Reinhard M?ller
Emmanuel Salvador reported a problem with the configure script for GNUe
Application Server 0.0.5 and posted his "log file" , which showed the problem
was with the uuid header file. Jens M?ller noted that " The Debian package" for
GEAS listed libuuid1 as a dependancy. Reinhard confimed this, saying "uuid.h is
a part of the ext2fs package" and explained where to find it. However, he
warned " that geas-0.0.5 is a development version and does about nothing that
would be usable to the end user" . It was also about to be made obsolete by the
"rewrite of GEAS" now under way.
3. Naming conventions in GNUe Application Server
7 Mar 2002 Archive Link: "[IRC] 07 Mar 2002"
Topics: Application Server
People: Dmitry Sorokin, Reinhard M?ller, Peter Sullivan, ra3vat
Dmitry Sorokin (ra3vat) asked "is that naming convention for packages, modules
in geas you did with neilt still making sense ?" Reinhard said "i think yes -
because it's about how the packages, modules and classes can be translated into
table and column names" . Dmitry asked where it was documented. Reinhard said
"i think it should be somewhere in the mailing list archives - probably in the
old gnue-geas@lists.gnue.org archives - plus i think it's in the module
writer's guide - but not sure" .
(ed. [Peter Sullivan] It's also 'documented' (in a sense) in Issue #11,
Section #3 (6 Jan 2002: Old and new parser for GNUe Class Definitions) . )
4. Debian packages for GNUe
7 Mar 2002 Archive Link: "[IRC] 07 Mar 2002"
People: Derek Neighbors, Nick Rusnov
In an attempt to conclude Issue #20, Section #4 (7 Mar 2002: Debian packages
for GNUe) , Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) asked "nickr think i could sucker you
into fixing our debian packages?" . Nick Rusnov (nickr) asked "are they broken
again? - the bugs that I had filed god closed." Derek said "i think common is
busted - as designer cant find some images - and the .conf file doesnt get
created only the sample" . Nick asked "are they based on a release or CVS?" .
Derek wasn't sure - "eventually i would like to see - gnue-forms,
gnue-appsever, gnue-designer, gnue-common - then a tasksel for gnue" , and
eventually seperate versions of common for each database backend, "just like
apache does with its 'modules'" . It would be interesting to have 'dev'
packages for the CVS versions as well - Nick said "-cvs is the normal suffix
for cvs stuff" . Derek said "for now just release no other frills is cool by me
:)" .
5. Document Management for GNUe
8 Mar 2002 Archive Link: "[IRC] 08 Mar 2002"
Topics: Common
People: Nick Rusnov, Stuart Bain, Derek Neighbors
Continuing Issue #15, Section #6 (3 Feb 2002: Document Storage/Content
Management for GNUe) , Nick Rusnov (nickr) provided Stuart Bain (stbain) with a
link (http://nick.industrialmeats.com/proj/document-store/gnue/spec/
Document-Store/documentstorespec.html) to his document store proposals. He said
"the storage part is pretty simple - the library will be the fun part." .
Stuart said the "indexing, sorting, searching" would be the difficult part.
Nick said it would use "GnUe Common - I believe that it provides DB neutrality"
. The front end would be through "forms/web/whatever - all the various objects
are RPC and 'trustless' or reduced trust relationships - so your client just
has to speak RPC" . Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) confirmed that Common would
provide datanbase and RPC abstraction, but said "currently only good docs for
common are the source :( - we do plan on changing that though" .
6. ERP Standards
10 Mar 2002 - 12 Mar 2002 (3 posts) Archive Link: "XRBL & Other Goodies"
Topics: Financials (Accounting)
People: Todd Boyle, Derek Neighbors, Zachary Coffin
Todd Boyle replied to Zachary Coffin' e-mail in Issue #18, Section #7 (
21 Feb 2002: ERP Standards) , noting "More of your word-count is directed at
me, as a person than on issues." . After discussing the issues raised in Zack's
e-mail point by point, he concluded "Give us a GL schema. Not a taxonomy for
XBRL. No more delays or manuevers." Derek Neighbors reprised the issue of
membership fees for standards bodies, noting "Anything above no cost for a
group of free software developers is too much." He preferred the GNU/Linux
model, where "The bigger plays should be ponying up the resources in largest
volume as they have the most to GAIN, but they shouldnt lock out the little
guy, as that is a free resource to them." He noted that " several people over
the years have asked us to look at XBRL for G/L stuff and we saw it only as a
reporting standard not a G/L standard. Which leads me to believe people are
stupid (either for miscontruing this or not finding the G/L standard in there)
or that its being misrepresented/mismarketed somewhere." . He said he had
"publicly criticized Todd in many areas and vice versa" but "I think he has
been pretty cordial here in combating what appears to be FUD with facts. It has
been an interesting dialog and several good issues are brought up. Fortunately
or Unfortunately we have been so head down on coding tools we havent been
taking issue with all the accounting world around us. When we do I think that
these conversations will only get better."
7. GNUe Project Management
11 Mar 2002 - 13 Mar 2002 (4 posts) Archive Link: "Project Management Package?"
Topics: Project Management
People: Gil Hauer, Derek Neighbors
Gil Hauer asked about " the project management package for GNUE" Derek said
that DCL would probably " become the base for our project management package" ,
but if Gil didn't "think DCL fits what you are looking for let us know and we
can start looking into getting a proposal written and something implemented." .
Gil said " Perhaps the best thing to do is to try to explain, in some small
way, what I as a project manager need to do." . He raised a series of detailed
points under the headings of:
1. Project Planning
2. Project Control
3. Project Close
as well as issues such as contact management, document management and version
control.
8. GNUe Application Server API
11 Mar 2002 - 13 Mar 2002 (5 posts) Archive Link: "[Gnue-dev] First draft for
an API of the GNU Enterprise Application Server"
Topics: Application Server
People: Reinhard M?ller, Daniel Baumann
Reinhard M?ller announced "a first draft of the API is available (http://
www.gnuenterprise.org/~reinhard/api) " , and asked for comments.
Daniel Baumann said " I don't really see much of a difference between your
'session' object and what exists already in the current geas as a 'connection'
object. In fact I thought we might build a more pluggable authentication
framework ans implement 'permissions' stuff in an RBAC way." . Reinhard agreed,
but said "I guess this is internal to the Appserver, while the interface I was
trying to describe is the interface the Appserver shows against Forms or
Reports." Daniel said "your session object does make a bit more sense now. I do
have a rough idea how things will work and I will attain a better one once I
look at how client programs use the ODMG interfaces" .
Daniel also suggested " For Transaction objects I would use the current
transaction.idl as that interface is exactly the on from the ODMG standard and
it includes more than just commit() and rollback()." . Reinhard said he would
look at Daniel's notes on this.
Daniel also noted that " ODMG defines various collections (set, bag, list,
dictionary) which may not be immediately apparent to their usefulness in
regards to business objects, however I have now come to find out they are
extremely useful in doing OQL queries" , adding "I think these collections need
to be implemented." Reinhard said he wasn't sure whether all of these were
needed - where functionality was needed, it should be provided " according to
existing standards, but I'm not sure if it makes sense to implement
functionality that will not be used, just because there is a standard for it."
However, "the Forms and Reports team will have to decide if they find it useful
to be able to request sets, bags or dictionaries of objects from the
Appserver." Daniel agreed, noting that "there will be an OQL interface and an
Introspection interface." Reinhard said he wasn't sure - "Instead of the OQL
interface, we could use the query tree system from common that forms uses
internally now. This could be the better way than to let Forms translate the
query from tree to OQL and let the Appserver translate OQL back to query tree
:)" On introspection, he had considered " the idea of allowing introspection by
pseudo business objects" . This was similar in concept to the way that
relational databases did it.
9. Status of GNUe Applications
11 Mar 2002 Archive Link: "[IRC] 11 Mar 2002"
Topics: Financials (Accounting), DCL
People: Reinhard M?ller, Derek Neighbors
It was asked whether GNUe was usable as at time of writing to manage a small
business. Reinhard M?ller (reinhard) said "gnue is two projects in one - a.
create the tools that can be used to build powerful business applications - b.
create the powerful business applications themselves" . Derek Neighbors
(dneighbo) added "c. a meta package of GNU that bundles enterprise software for
the GNU project :)" . Reinhard said "if you are looking at a tool that lets you
build your own business apps - then you could use gnue for sure" . Derek said
"if you are wanting to open the box and press the button to have accounting
then nope :)" - however, "DCL and Bayonne are both available and working" .
It was asked how much development would be needed to get something usable.
Derek said this "depends - for example i expect DCL to be ready very soon for
small business (SERVICE) based consultants" . He explained DCL was "like a
project management / help desk system - we are adding strong CRM support into
it - and making it so that the work order side could be used to generate
invoices i.e. a time entry/crm/billing solution for software consultants (or
any service based company) - it is quite usable today" . However, he confirmed
that there is no way to do accounting, and was not expected soon.
Later, it was asked what level of development was needed to develop in GNUe.
Derek said "our framework is designd for BUSINESS ANALYST more thna
'programmers' - so if you can understand table structures and know what you
want your app to do - doing it in GNUe shouldnt be too difficult even for a non
'programmer'" .
10. GNUe Reports proposal
11 Mar 2002 Archive Link: "[IRC] 11 Mar 2002"
Topics: Reports, DCL
People: Bajusz Tam?s, James Thompson, Derek Neighbors
Bajusz Tam?s (btami) asked about GNUe Reports - "is there any directions - or
frozen ?" . James Thompson (jamest) said there was " nothing in stone - but
jcater has been the only one coding on it - so I imagine the docs are all in
that head of his :) - or in some text files in the reports/doc dir" . Derek
Neighbors (dneighbo) said "the code works - the biggest hang up is we need to
'define' our tags - several of us have mentioned some things but no one made a
'proposal' - once that is done i can do XSLT style sheets against them" .
Bajusz asked what was meant by 'tags.' Derek said these would cover "setup and
layout - so you might hae like - my foo report" . This was
documented at http://goats.gnue.org/~dneighbo/gnue/reports.txt (http://
goats.gnue.org/~dneighbo/gnue/reports.txt) . He explained "basically that doc
isnt what we WANT - but it helps describe what we are looking for. I'm all
about starting simple - and working way into more complex reporting ojbects :)"
. Bajusz said he would read it and "try a proposal" .
11. GNUe Kernel Cousins on linuxtoday
12 Mar 2002 Archive Link: "[IRC] 12 Mar 2002"
Topics: Why GNUe?
People: Daniel Baumann, Jason Cater, Derek Neighbors, David McWherter, James
Thompson, Nick Rusnov
Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) noted " hey did you guys see that we got 2
talkbacks on linuxtoday aboutvt he KC?" . Jason Cater (jcater) said he "is
responding" . Derek Neighbors (derek) said "hey talking crap about gnue is like
eating pizza - if im not involved its not allowed" .
Jason pasted his reply - " There are in effect two different projects at work
here. The first one is a database-backed application framework. Several of us
are using the Forms and Designer components in a production (or commercial)
environment in 2-tier mode (i.e., the client talks directly to the database and
doesn't delegate any logic to an application server middleware). The
Application Server (GEAS) is being reworked and is not, to my knowledge, used
in production environment. When you see comments about not preserving backwards
compatability, they are referring to GEAS."
" The second part, actual business applications (such as financials, supply
chain management, etc) are still in the planning stages and are awaiting a
working application server. So, to answer your question, yes, parts of it are
being used in production. I use custom forms (designed inhouse) that connect to
my Oracle database to run parts of our callcenter and warehouse. Come check us
out."
David McWherter (dtm) suggested " uh oh if there was a linuxtoday article about
gnue today, then we'd better behave ourselves - someone might be watching" .
Daniel wasn't worried - "psu knows what to edit out" . James Thompson (jamest)
suggested "looks like we'd better ban most the losers that hang out here -
including ourselves" , at which point the Channel Server bot granted him
operator status.
Derek "submitted two responses as well - though for clarification ( i suppose
we should document this better) gnue is three things :)" :
1. a gnu meta package bundling gnu project packages that are enterprise
related
2. an application framework
3. applications built using the framework
Nick Rusnov (nickr) asked " is there a whatis section on the wesite?" . Derek
said that "'What is GNUe?' is first thing on the left corner of the webpage -
if only the 'blink' tag wasnt banned" . Nick suggested " Eh! What the frig is this shit?" , noting " 10em font
would be like half a screen high or so." .
12. i18n support in GNUe Forms
12 Mar 2002 - 13 Mar 2002 Archive Link: "[IRC] 12 Mar 2002"
Topics: Forms
People: Derek Neighbors, Arturas Kriukovas
Following on from Issue #16, Section #7 (9 Feb 2002: Occasional unicode
problems with Designer) and Issue #18, Section #4 (21 Feb 2002: GNUe full-time
developers) , Derek Neighbors (laurie) noted that "arturas has been jamming on
i18n" , and " i think his conclusion is he has patch that makes it work with
our parser - BUT - wxWindows doesnt support unicode (and he hit same python bug
i think we did)" .
The next day (http://www.gnuenterprise.org/irc-logs/gnue-public.log.13Mar2002)
, Derek asked Arturas Kriukovas (Arturas2) whether he had "sent anything to the
wxWindows/wxPython mailing lists to ask when items will be corrected on thier
end" ? Arturas said he hadn't, "because i'm not sure whether this is because of
my not big knowledge (maybe i just don't knwo something) - and to tell the
truth i didn't think about this possibility :(" . Derek said he had "forwarded
it jamest and jcater to try to see if they had any insight - i will try to look
at it tonight" .
13. Wizard changes in Designer
12 Mar 2002 Archive Link: "[IRC] 12 Mar 2002"
Topics: Designer
People: Derek Neighbors, Jason Cater
Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) asked " what is the datasources editor for
exactly... (it appears to not do anything you cant do in properties or schema
editor) " . and added "are you open to suggestions on schema editor...." .
Jason Cater (jcater) said that "datasource editor predated schema navigator -
and datasource editor will eventually be more than it is now " . Derek said he
" would like to see us get more into database space i.e. show a tree view of
drivers installed and let you config them and set optoins etc... but also allow
you to create table defintions in designer" . This was not really urgent, but
"lots of people (the business users) are hung up on concept of having to hand
write a sql script" . Jason said he had "started on such a thing - but this
damn real life keeps interfering" .
Derek said " that guy in here today yogurt (dont know exact nick) wanted
dynamic table editor - which might be pretty cool as example of python wx
application that is not gnue but uses gnue-common - basically fire it up and
select a driver, select a database, select a table, select some fields - and it
opens in a wxGrid. At first i was like just make a form, but then i recalled
that i had such a tool i made in delphi one afternoon that was EXTREMELY
valuable - as it was a real easy way to view data in a lightweight way without
having to make forms" . Jason said "not sure I see how this is different than
our "multi-row" layout option in the Simple Wizard" . Derek said he "thought it
might be a decent usage of gnue common outside gnue :) - not saying WE should
author it :)" . Jason said "my only fear is that has SO much in common with
forms" that there was a danger of "feature-creep" .
Derek suggested that the master detail wizard "should list all fields in master
on left and all fields for detail on right - you highlight the field in each
you want and click a button in the middle to bind them" . Jason asked "how
would that work w/multiple keys?" Derek suggested "you can highlight multiple
on both sides" . Jason emphasised that the master-detail wizard had been "a
sample wizard to show what designer could do AS IT SITS :) - never said it was
the best or final way ;)" . Derek said the wizard could also ask "how many rows
the detail is if you choose grid" . Jason said he had been torn about this -
"as that isn't actually a "grid" wizard but a simple demo wizard and I don't
want to keep cramming options in that simple wizard" . Derek suggested "if we
made it automatically put a scrollbar on right then i dont think we need to
ask" .
Jason said he had "never had the inclination or need to try scrollbars so I
dunno how they work" . Derek confirmed that the Technical Reference manual
stated that scrollbars were " Only partially implemented at this time. Will
show on form but do nothing" , which was exactly what "my bug report to jamest
was gonig to be" .
14. DCL and GNUe Enterprise
13 Mar 2002 Archive Link: "[IRC] 13 Mar 2002"
Topics: DCL
People: Michael Dean, Derek Neighbors, Peter Sullivan
Michael Dean (mdean) said he had "got 2 offers to help develop features today"
. On the first, Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) said "i think we want RBAC" but he
preferred either "a. do it right even if it takes a long time - b. do a hack to
meet current needs knowing it needs to be done right eventually." He felt the
proposal seemed to fall between these two approaches. Michael said "I think
he'll go for RBAC" . He had also had a volunteer keen to work on
"authentication, enhanced configuration, and additional look-and-feel template
sets." .
Peter Sullivan (psu) asked if DCL should now be referred to as "GNUe DCL", in
the light of Issue #19, Section #14 (5 Mar 2002: GNUe/DCL merger announced) .
Michael wasn't "sure how we should approach that..." . Derek suggested "for now
call it DCL - we havent worked out specifics of GNUe DCL - i imagine as it
advances it will be - GNUe HelpDesk, GNUe Project Managment, or something - but
we are a ways off from that :)" . Michael said "it's a tricky thing, since DCL
has built its own brand" . Derek said "i think initially DCL is like Bayonne in
that its a project under GNUe - but it slowly will start to get GNUe front ends
(but still keep its back ends) and then over time start to use contacts module
of gnue, accounting module of gnue, invoice, etc etc - here then it will be uch
more of a 'hybrid'" . Michael suggested "I would reserve GNUe DCL for a GNUe
framework implementation - like your DCL forms" . Derek agreed - "basically
there are still tons of steps :) - but the first and biggest has been taken,
and that is to work together on a much deeper level than just acknowledging one
anothers projects as a nicety - but rather immerse the visions of both projects
into a reality" . He admitted this sounded like "marketing spew" , but blamed
the Kernel Cousins, "as i know i will be quoted :)" .
15. 2-tier vs. n-tier applications
13 Mar 2002 Archive Link: "[IRC] 13 Mar 2002"
Topics: Forms
People: Charles Rouzer, Jason Cater, Peter Sullivan, Nick Rusnov, Charles
Rouser
Charles Rouzer (Mr_You) asked "how would I get real functionality with just a
2-tier app? - ie. its just a data in/out app, not much functionality beyond
that." Jason Cater (jcater) said "there's no less functionality than in n-tier
mode - it's just where does the functionality lie" . Charles asked "so how do I
get "external" functionality? such as, data is inputed, email of data is sent -
without having something monitor the database tables" ? Peter Sullivan (psu)
suggested "attatch a trigger to something on the form e.,g the submnit button &
write some python to do it" . Jason agreed - "it would be no different than in
n-tier mode - in n-tier you have triggers watching transactions at the
middle-ware level" . Nick Rusnov suggested "you could put a pl/sql trigger in
no?" . Peter said this would be "d/b specific - a forms trigger will work with
any back end" . Charles asked "how would a trigger execute code?" . Jason
explained that was what a Forms trigger was - this wasn't a database-level
trigger. Nick said "the reason I liked the database level trigger is you only
have to deal with sending mail in one spot then and get mail working on one
computer" . Charles agreed, saying that he might have a mix of different
operating systems running the Forms client. Jason suggested "when that's a big
deal for my stuff, I just have an xml-rpc instance running on the server to
listen for those events" . Nick also suggested "you could have like a webform
email thing and url encode it. its hacky though." Charles asked "with DB
triggers, is there a "mail function" or a method of executing external scripts?
" . Nick noted that in "postgres you can embed a perl scrip.t or a pl/sql
script - I know in perl its pretty easy to send mail :)" .
Sharon And Joy
Kernel Traffic is grateful to be developed on a computer donated by Professor
Greg Benson and Professor Allan Cruse in the Department of Computer Science at
the University of San Francisco. This is the same department that invented
FlashMob Computing. Kernel Traffic is hosted by the generous folks at
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