Web-based client code execution

[Paul Watson]

John J. Lee wrote:
> Paul Watson <pwatson at redlinepy.com> writes:
> 
> 
>>What are the options?
>>
>>The user to hits a web page, downloads code (Python I hope), execute it, 
>>and be able to return the results.  It needs to be able to go through 
>>standard HTTP so that it could be run from behind a corporate firewall 
>>without any other ports being opened.
>>
>>Am I stuck doing an ActiveX control?
> 
> [...]
> 
> If you just need to talk on port 80, just go ahead and do that (module
> socket, module httplib, module urllib2, urllib.getproxies, etc), and
> write a normal desktop application.
> 
> 
> If it must run in a browser, here is some food for thought:
> 
> 
> Compile Python to JavaScript -- very cool
> 
> http://www.aminus.org/blogs/index.php/phunt/2005/10/06/subway_s_new_ajax_framework
> 
> http://www.aminus.org/blogs/index.php/phunt/2005/10/09/psst_crackajax_is_in_svn
> 
> 
> Plain old AJAX with Python on server side
> 
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/json-py/
> 
> http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ajax+python&btnG=Search (um, ignore the 1st result)
> 
> 
> Write Java applets in Python
> 
> http://www.jython.org/
> 
> 
> Flash 'local storage'
> 
> http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/help02.html
> 
> Sort-of AJAX-for-Flash stuff
> 
> http://www.cs.unc.edu/~parente/tech/tr04.shtml
> http://www.simonf.com/flap/
> 
> Flash itself (boo;-)
> 
> http://www.macromedia.com/
> 
> 
> XUL and PyXPCOM (Firefox only)
> 
> http://www.xulplanet.com/
> 
> http://trac.nunatak.com.au/projects/nufox
> 
> 
> Firefox future capabilities in this direction (probably most of this
> is relevant)
> 
> http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap/gecko-1.9-roadmap.html
> 
> http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2005_09.html
> 
> 
> John

I appreciate your long list of references.  For this task, I think the 
first answer may have to be the one with which to go.  A standard 
application that talks through port 80 and perhaps can use proxies.

My desire to have the code distributed through a web page is just to 
ensure that the user is running the correct version and has not hacked 
it in any way.  I suppose I can checksum the local client application 
and compare it with what is on the server.  Then, make a way to 
update... ARGH!

Even when future browsers embed Python interpreters, the security 
considerations may be such that no one will want to accept code which 
can do much locally anyway.  Probably the right thing for the public 
Internet,  Makes it harder to develop internal system management tools.