Web-based client code execution

[Fuzzyman]

Paul Watson wrote:
> John J. Lee wrote:
[snip..]
> 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!
>

If you can run it as a client application (i.e. not through the browser
but still across the internet) - then this all seems quite easy to
achieve. It also allows you to access the local filesystem without
dropping out of Python or using ActiveX objects.

If you know the version of Python the machines are using (or create a
loader program using py2exe) then you only need dsitribute the 'pyc'
bytecode files. (Making it *much* harder to hack for the average user).

I don't know if anyone has released an 'auto-update' framework for
applications, but it would be a nice project. I guess each time it's
needed the requirements will be slightly different though - but there
are a lot of general principles.

All the best,

Fuzzyman
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/index.shtml