[plug] Program modularity/(Server Client?) - IHCC

[hooker at iinet.net.au]

Quoting Tim White <weirdo at tigris.org>:
> I initially wrote IHCC in PHP so that it would run on most OS's and so 
> that you didn't need any special permissions on the server other than 
> PHP. I have been thinking of adding other frontends and have come to the 
> realisation that I probably need a real backend and was looking for 
> opinoins on different methods. I want the application to be reachable by 
> web browsers, command line programs, x programs, telnet, etc ... so that 
> it can be accessed through as many methods as possible. The /MAIN/ 
> reason for this is the realisation that not everybody wants a html frontend.
> I also don't want it to require to much on the server. Mainly a shell 
> account and webspace if the webfronted is to be used.

As an illustration of how not to do things, I'm currently figting a third party 
application which has a sophisticated GUI (written in Java and not fast) and an 
alternative interface based on CORBA (which has limited functionality and is 
unbelievably slow). My frustration level is climbing as I have to continually 
rewrite code to try & neutralise the failings of the CORBA interface.

A proper design would have been a feature-rich backend used by the GUI, the 
CORBA front-end (for those who have a fixation with CORBA) and also more 
flexible methods such as SOAP/WSDL, XML, http(s) etc.

It sounds to me as though the direction that you're moving is a good one. If 
you want cross-platform availability, then PHP/Perl will do it (have you looked 
into Mono?). For the software design, think in layers - a back-end layer to 
provide a feature-rich application, and a front-end which "plugs in" to the 
backend using whatever transport is available.

Hope this helps.

Hook