Hey Mike H take a and tell me how on earth this
thing is working. It will only run under IE 5.0 at the moment but does not seem to be running any plugins or java???

Cliff Baeseman

Cliff wrote

Hey Mike H take a and tell me how on earth this thing is working. It will only run under IE 5.0 at the moment but does not seem to be running any plugins or java???

I signed up to look at it but it required IE5 on Windows. I run Netscape and the most recent IE I have is version 4. If I have time to up grade one of my machines to IE5 I take a more detailed look.

Anyway here is my take on what I was able to run so far.

It uses Javascript and DHTML (CSS/XML) to generate the user interface. This is in fact very easy especially with IE5's features. I assume they are sticking to IE5 since the work required to make it Javascript work in BOTH IE and Netscape is a real pain.

The main crunching of the applications is performed via CGI and Web Server modules located on the host machine. That is were all the files are saved and all of the work is done. That is why you are given 20 Meg of space. Without it you don't have any place to put your data.

Another way to envision it is that it works similar to X-Windows itself. You can be accessing an XWindows server that is running the applications and saving the content on the host machine while all of the visuals, the windows and components are seen on your machine. VNC comes to mind. It just uses Javascript and DHTML instead of XWindow stuff. :-)

You know what the weird thing is? This is starting to go full circle. In that past everything was run on main frames or mini-computers that were accessed via dumb terminals. You know the vt100, vt220 kind of thing. Then the big thing was to push all of the intelligence to the desktop. Put the power of the computer in the hands of the user. Distributed computing was the big term. It brought about the death of the main frame and brought DEC to the point that Compaq could buy them out.

Now look what is going on. They are going back to centralized computing power. Put all of the applications on one server where all of the information and data is stored and use dumb PCs, or to use the current jargen, Network PCs, to connect to these servers to do your work. So if it continues along this line of development these servers will have to grow in size to be able to accommodate the growing hord of users. Which means what. Large clusters or main frame computers. Shsssssssssss.

So those sticking to mainframes were right all along :-)

And I"m happily writing Delphi code to connect Web users to mainframe data...the only downside has been having to learn to configure the mainframe sessions correctly....

jyll

Haha. My company is part of a larger one, and that one is still working on Mainframes (TCP/IP on mainframe); believe it or not, but mainframes DO have a future;

The main assets of Mainframes are STABILITY and SECURITY - very important to insurance companies, banks, any big organization. My mother-company has a small number of clients, but the amounts of money paid are HUGE...

So those sticking to mainframes were right all along :-)

That said, I hate mainframes :( I'm still traumatized from my university years, when we had to program on the university's big VM370...

Michael.