RE: Should I buy WebObjects?
RE: Should I buy WebObjects?
- Subject: RE: Should I buy WebObjects?
- From: "Clark, Igor" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 11:35:39 -0000
Hi Ignacio,
I'm assuming you don't want to re-write your mathematical code in Java. If
so, and you want to use WebObjects, you would need to do one of two things
(there are probably other alternatives as well):
(a) package your C code up as a shared library and wrap it up using JNI, the
Java Native Interface, which would provide a Java interface to the API
provided by your C code. This can be a somewhat fiddly task, but not overly
complex. Alternatively, you might consider
(b) writing a SOAP server layer (using existing C SOAP libraries) for your
application code which exposes its functionality as a range of web services
that a WebObjects application could consume. This latter method might be
better as it provides a cleaner delineation between the code domains and
would also open your math. code for use in a wide variety of languages and
platforms.
That said, if you don't know Java, you may want to consider other tools for
making a web version of your desktop application. Personally I think
WebObjects is by far the best web application server out there, but current
versions (5 and above) are pure Java; if you could get hold of a previous
version (e.g. 4.5, the last version which allows WebObjects application
development in Objective-C) then integrating your C code would be a lot
easier, but I don't think such a version would be supported by Apple. As
Philip said, you might want to try GNUStep web or SOPE, also enabling you to
write the web application in Objective-C. It might well be less
time-consuming to learn Objective-C than Java depending on your background
and preferences etc.
Other tools will depend on what you need to do, what sort of performance you
expect, which language you want to write in, which platform you're on, etc.
If you're on a Unix you could try Perl as it's pretty much ubiquitous in Web
environments; its integration with C is not bad using the "perlembed" stuff
to call C subroutines from Perl code, and you could even consider wrapping
your code up as a Perl package which you would just use as a library in Perl
code. Similarly you could try PHP; you could wrap your C up as a PHP library
and then make use of PHP's session and database support (amongst other
things).
I'm guessing though that you would like to stick to C if possible. It sounds
like you don't need much in the way of database access; if this is correct
then WebObjects's wonderful database framework might not be of that much use
to you, and you might want to look at some other possible solutions which
will let you write the web application in C and hence obviate any issues
that might otherwise arise in integrating your existing code:
- you could write an Apache (webserver) module integrating your C code into
the webserver itself, meaning that you have helpful functionality allowing
you to work with the web stuff (writing anything more than simple CGI
applications in C is no fun) and will also give excellent performance.
O'Reilly have a book about it: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wrapmod/, and
there'll be documentation for it at the Apache website
http://httpd.apache.org/ - version 2 docs are at
http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/developer/.
- FastCGI, an extension to CGI which can provide some of the same
functionality and performance, and even session support with the Session
Affinity module. http://www.fastcgi.com/
Hope this is of some help. If I were in your position I'd probably go for
the SOAP route so that I could use WebObjects, as it's so good for web
applications (and I like developing with it) and I'd enjoy the SOAP stuff,
but YMMV.
Bests
Igor
-----Original Message-----
From: Philip Mvtteli [mailto:email@hidden]
Sent: 24 March 2004 10:02
To: WebObjects
Subject: Re: Should I buy WebObjects?
Am 24.03.2004 um 10:32 schrieb Ignacio Alonso Alonso:
> I have a simple question (I think). I have an application programmed
> in C code. The application is basically a quite complex mathematic and
> statistic algorithm to analyse blood pressure data. The user has to
> introduce some numerical parameters for the analysis and to choose a
> file of data. The results of the application are a set of tables and
> plots. Now I need to convert this desktop application to a Web
> applicattion.
>
> Do you think that WebObjects is the right tool for this task?
> Is my C code easily integrable in the WebObjects enviroment?
> (I do not know Java)
>
>
> Thank you very much for your time.
Perhaps you might try GNUstepWeb? Or SOPE:?
Re
Phil
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