I downloaded an intriguing CGI framework (written in REBOL) that is described as follows on this site:
http://laurentchevalier.dyndns.org/rebol/rsp/
The Overview page states as follows:
RSP (REBOL Server Pages) is a CGI framework for building dynamic Web sites in REBOL.
Its main features are:
Recursive parsing and evaluation of RSP templates (REBOL code embedded in HTML page)
GET, POST and HEAD methods
Cookies
Session management
File upload caching (low-memory footprint)
File download function
Enhanced security (file size, cache size, memory usage limitations, disk and net access rights, etc.)
Logging
I have been trying to wrap my mind around adapting this for use
so that it will be up-and-running with the Abyss Web Server.
As the documentation goes on to say, " Basically, RSP is made of a CGI script, rsp.cgi, and a configuration file, rsp.conf. But it must be installed onto a Web server together with REBOL/Core and eventually REBOL/View. "
Which indicates to me that invoking it through Abyss instead of Apache is just a matter of configuring Abyss to invoke the rebol interpreter + the rsp.cgi script to process the html page(which may contain embedded REBOL script code within) and return the results to the requesting browser.
The way this is done under Apache is to use the AddHandler functionality to indicate that rsp.cgi (or rspv.cgi for REBOL/View) will handle pages with an .rsp or .rspv extension (and I suppose the .html extension also).
One question I have is: Does Abyss have some equivalent way of indicating that files of an indicated extension be invoked by a script (which in turn is invoked by an indicated interpreter [ i.e., REBOL/Core in this case ]?
The REBOL SERVER PAGES CGI framework comes in 3 possible download flavors (as far as I can see): 1) EasyRSP, which is an all-inclusive windows pre-configured Apache 2.x distribution with all RSP files and configuration pre-set, so that all you need to do is install it to a directory of your choice and run Apache.
2) An automatic Linux-based installation, also with Apache and the RSP scripts.
and 3) A quote, Manual install of RSP on any system and any Web server , UNQUOTE, which basically consist of various script files, documentaion, and configuration files.
However, no matter which one you download.
all documentation only refers to Apache (no mention of how to get this working with ANY other web server - not even IIS.)
Well, okay, not a biggie. By inspecting how things are set up under Apache, and looking over the configuration files, it might be possible to set things up by configuring Abyss and modifying paths, configuration files, etc. so that
everything is up and running -
It would be really nice to be able to have embedded REBOL scripting code inside a web page for several reasons:
1) Both the REBOL/ CORE and the REBOL/View executables are incredibally small, and thus load very quicky.
2) REBOL works with built-in networking capabilities,
3) REBOL is a messaging language with very good dialecting capabilities,
4) because of point #3, REBOL has a Parsing Dialect and a Visual Interface Dialect that is incredibly easy to use,
5) as a result, writing relatively sophisticated applications can typicaly be accomplished with very few lines of code,
6) REBOL code runs *EXACTLY* the same under all the platforms supported [ I believe around 30 platforms or so ]
7) As a cumulative result of points 1 - 6 above, enabling the scripting of REBOl code within your web page would potentially result in a high degree of flexibility, performance, and leverage, as compared to,say, javascript.
It might also be possible to enable the use of REBOL as a servlet technology, similar to the technology that is used within the Java Language for Applets [ but perhaps we could calll them REBLETS? ]
So, anyway, I was wondering if any of you might have been experimenting with using REBOL under Abyss Web Server, and if so, what you might think about this REBOL SERVER PAGES idea?