Re: Newbee on web apps with Delphi

From: Bjørge Sæther (bjorge_at_hahaha_itte.no)
Date: 11/04/04 

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 22:42:23 +0100

Jad wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> I need to develop my first web application with delphi for database
> management, so I would like to ask you if you know some tutorials,
> books or any info to begin with. I would appreciate your help.

OK. I'll try to describe what I know about writing such applications:

- CGI applications: It's simply an application that receives the request via
"stdin" (You normally use Read, ReadLn) and provide output (HTML) vie stdout
(Write, WriteLn). Very simple, the only problem being that the application
is run once per request, and that isn't exactly ideal for database-based web
applications ;-)
- ISAPI modules: A .dll with a standarized set of exported routines to
provide communication with the Web server. In Version 2 of the ISAPI spec I
believe there are possibilities of making the module persistent throughout a
session (but I gave up on this as the Apache Web server couldn't handle it).
In practice I believe you should only do this with IIS.
- WebSnap: This is more suitable for database-based applications, as the
server application normally stays loaded throughout the session. But - the
WebSnap concept is quite complicated - involving both the DataSnap stuff and
the HTML output stuff. My advice would be to stay clear of this one, due to
bad experience with the Midas/DataSnap concept. It may work like a charm,
but there is quite a lot to understand toi make it work as expected. It may
be easier to catch up on a server side scripting language like php. The good
thing about php is that there are litterally a million php developers out
there, while WebSnap...is not very commonly used, to my knowledge.
- ASP.NET (Delphi 8->): I've just started looking into this one, and it
seems simpler than much of the other stuff - as you design HTML *and* write
code within the very same module. Much like creating a normal Windows
application. I'm a little bit afraid of the usual RAD approach, though,
especially for largish projects. And, AFIK, it struggles with the problem of
loading/unloading the modules per request.

Now, what are you gonna do with this app of yours ? 

-- 
Regards,
Bjørge Sæther
bjorge@haha_itte.no
-------------------------------------
I'll not spend any money on American Software products
until armed forces are out of Iraq.

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