Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 00:15:23 -0800 From: jehamby@lightside.com (Jake Hamby) To: softweyr@xmission.com Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: CNET announces InterJet... Message-ID: <199703080815.AAA08340@hamby1>
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Wes Peters writes: > Jake Hamby writes: > > This is my one (and only) complaint with the InterJet, that it tries to shield > > the users from UNIX to the extent that it's not CAPABLE of adding in > > functionality like CGI scripts. For basic use, however, I'll agree that it's > > way cool for using FreeBSD. > > How 'bout the fact that it costs $2000, and you can do the same yourself > with a $500 machine and FreeBSD? Ah, well YOU or I could do the same thing for $500, but for the kind of people who are willing to spend $10000 or more on a Sun Netra, $2000 is quite a bargain! > > Best Internet server software: > > NONE, they all suck, use Apache :) > > Yeah. Apache sucks too, but at least it's free. ;^) Have you looked at Sun's Java Web Server? Now THAT has the potential to be really cool. Let's see: Completely cross-platform, decent performance (considering it's written in Java, it really holds its own, even without a JIT), EXCELLENT performance running servlets, SSL and proxy server support, and a decent GUI admin interface too. One of my coworkers at JPL has designed an entire document management "intranet", using CGI's in Perl connected to an mSQL database. While the prototype is quite impressive, I can already see that there is NO way Perl will scale for this project to work reasonably efficiently if this server is to be used by all of JPL. We are seriously looking at Java servlets as a way to provide good speed (no context switches needed); the servlet is only loaded and initialized once, and can then serve many users simultaneously through threads, compared to perl which must be reloaded and reparse the CGI every time it's called! > > Best Internet application: > > * Marimba Castanet 1.0 (whoohoo, excellent technology, and I might add, > > Kim Polese ought to win Person of the Year :) > > None. They all suck. We still need a much faster internet; then > ACM will qualify. ;^) That's why Castanet is a halfway-decent idea; it caches each applet on your local disk. You can even use it on a laptop: download all the programs to your hard drive while you're connected to your "Intranet", then go on a business trip. When you get back, you reconnect the laptop, and it transfers all the state back to your net. Having said that, I really don't know what the ultimate impact of these "push" technologies will be. I think Pointcast is pretty lame. No Internet technology is a completely safe bet, these days. The only reason I'm as optimistic about Java servlets as I am is because: 1) Java is a cool language in spite of the hype, and 2) All of the Web server vendors (Apache, Netscape, MS, Sun, etc.) will add Java servlet support to their servers, or you'll be able to download the functionality from JavaSoft and add it yourself. Perl is great for prototypes, but I just don't trust it for anything big. Until servlets came along, though, I'd be hard-pressed to give you a realistic alternative. I'll be working on my own servlet-based Web site at work next week, and if anyone is interested, I'd be happy to let you know how it went when I'm finished. -- Jake
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