[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: Pythonmac-SIG digest, Vol 1 #739 - 7 msgs

[Richard Gordon]

At 9:02 AM -0700 6/17/01, Daniel Lord wrote:
>The Flash idea with XML sounds intriguing. I haven't tried Python 
>XML parsing but if the parser is as easy to use and as powerful as 
>the Perl parser, it would be a clean de-coupled approach. But having 
>never used Flash and not being willing to spend hundreds of dollars 
>to buy Flash 5 from Macromedia just for GUIs,  I'll have to let 
>others investigate it and use it unless someone knows of a free tool 
>to create Flash. Since Flash is proprietary, I doubt there is one of 
>any substance but I could be mistaken.
>
>Since I am not a commercial entity, I'll have to keep looking for 
>open source solutions.

The Flash suggestion has some merit, altho I think that XML is just 
another example of internet banality that seeks to imitate what you 
could do on any desktop with a tab-delimited file a decade ago, but 
is packaged as some kind of intellectual breakthru.

In any event, there is a distinct learning curve to Flash because the 
interface is a bit strange. It doesn't hurt at all if you already 
know your way around Photoshop and JavaScript. While there isn't an 
open source knockoff of Flash as such, there is one for the Generator 
enterprise level application (altho I don't think that you could do 
much with it unless you really understood how Flash works to begin 
with) and you can always get a 30 day trial of Flash that will at 
least let you learn how to use Generator.

As an aside, there are 2 distinct advantages to using Flash in a web 
context where you have some kind of backend stuff running:
1) Since the Flash stuff is compiled into an .swf file, cgi calls 
can't be picked up via View Source, so security is better.
2) Flash will not process external calls fast enough to meet the 
needs of some kid in a dorm room who's come across your form mail 
page and decides to trash your server with a perl script that is 
running off of his desktop and sending 50,000 emails an hour. It will 
just choke on his machine and your server will never know what 
happened.


Richard Gordon
--------------------
Gordon Design
Web Design/Database Development
http://www.richardgordon.net