A Python application server?

[Andrew Walkingshaw]

In article <bbfmfo$ulf$1 at newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>, Duncan Smith wrote:
> Hello,
>          I'm trying to put together a (basic) design for an online
> examination system.  The system already exists, but is based on Java
> technologies.  I have (probably prematurely) assured the author that the
> system could have been developed in Python.  This is based in faith rather
> than reason, as I have never had cause to consider such a thing before
> (although I can now envisage that I might need to develop a simple
> application server within the next year or so).

In terms of prior art, I and a fellow student, as holiday employees,
wrote an exam server in Python (mod_python/apache, postgres backend),
conformant to the QTI Lite spec (http://www.imsproject.org/ - basically
multiple-choice visual/audio/textual questions), in about three months:
we didn't have strong authentication or any sort of eavesdropping
protection, though (we were doing everything via unencrypted HTTP). This
was meant to be released as BSD license software at some point, but it
never appeared. :(

This makes me believe more experienced programmers could put together a
rather better system in the same sort of timeframe.

Is there any reason (type of question, etc) why you can't aim for a
web-browser based solution on the client side, using SSL authentication
or similar to counter MITM/eavesdropping/impersionation attacks?

- Andrew

-- 
Andrew Walkingshaw | andrew-usenet at lexical.org.uk