History for InfraStructure

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InfraStructure

  RDBMS
  
    - Postgres with pl/pgsql stored procs.

  Webserving/MiddleWare

   Zope
  
    Pros

      - rapid development (for those who experienced with it)
  
      - python

      - flexibility

    Cons

      - if content is primarily relational than much of zope's goodness
        is lost. 

      - no support of bind variables for zsql methods
     
      - requires patching of zpublisher to add in soap support, such support
        may or not transparently expose all objects to soap calls.

      - requires careful design to avoid hotspots for non relational content.

      - lots of magic.
        
      - additionally, i have concerns about zope's throughput per node
        for a primarily relational site.
 
  Aolserver + OpenAcs + Python

    Pros

    - scalable
  
    - proven in this context

    - great rdbms integration

    - lots of community functionality and infrastructure with the acs

    - integration with python via "PyWX":http://pywx.idyll.org

    - possibly running with only select acs libraries.

    - robust internal scheduling system.

    - api for threads sharing data

    - easy to add in soap/xml-rpc support with python

   Cons

    - the programming model which is fundamentally relational 
      requires reading alot of documentation to learn the various apis.

    - not pure python

    - longer development cycle than with zope.


  Webware

    Pros

     - clean architecture 'no magic'
  
     - fast and python

     - easy to extend

    Cons

     - relatively new/unproven.

     - not much by way of plugin packages.

  Thoughts

    The Winner

      I think i'm pretty set on using aolserver, as its fundamentally oriented
    towards doing database backed websites. I'm going to investigate use
    of PyWX for some processing (esp pyxml instead of ns_xml's libxml     
    interface). The biggest problem is social, lack of support from the python 
    community and loss of potential developers, and the potential loss  for 
    avoiding duplicate work for a zope-repository. Further investigation of 
    what acs tcl library functionality can be reused. if there is strong 
    dissent in the python community than this option might not be viable...

    Why not Zope

      In an almost entirely relational site the use of Zope on technical merits
      seems rather moot.as for why not do it in a non-relational system, hmm..  
      the more i've worked with it from a relational perspective i can 
      definitely perceive benefits from doing it in a zopish way. but the 
      promise of pre built functionality offered by the acs that will integrate 
      easily is compelling.

    Why not Webware

      Quite honestly i just don't know it well enough, nor have i seen it used
      in enough contexts to trust it.

   Updates 10/3/01

     I've got a working aolserver + PyWx. the datamodel is coming together. i'm
     going to be using openfts.sf.net for site searching, although i'm wondering
     if it makes sense to use a different engine for indexing metadata for 
     keyword searching. other candidates swish++ and lucene.

     talked to author of pywx re support and continued development, things
     seem pretty solid.

     talked to don baccus of ybos, release coordinator for openacs4. i'm still
     a little concerned about using the openacs-4 for the site, it would open
     up a lot of functionality but it would require alot more work in tcl
     and plpgsql, on the other hand it would offer tremendous boost in 
     productivity and functionality. sigh... i've made the data model
     somewhat similar to the acs object model so it should port over fairly
     easy if this becomes a no brainer.

     read up the aolserver c documentation since pywx comes with almost
     none, not as much functionality as exposed as i thought, still quite
     a bit, and the rest python can do.

     i need to investigate whether or not i can use tls/tss storage for
     pywx, mainly for creating template contexts and the sql engine, else
     i'm stuck with doing most of the site in tcl, since i really would
     like some sort of templating and db abstraction.


   Updates 10/5/01
   
      I've decided to use the openacs for the site, the amount of time
    saved and the amount of extra functionality gain make it seem like
    a fairly straightforward decision, my only concern at the time 
    was speed issues, but it seems likely that i can get 12hits/s out
    of it w/o clustering on db backed pages.

   Updates 10/27/01
 
      I've uploaded the data model to date (see CodeReleases), which is 
    basically non openacs functional. at this point all future work will
    involve openacs integration.  To further elaborate on why use the openacs,
    basically membership, indexing, workflow, permissions, and prebuilt 
    community modules.

   Updates 11/15/01
 
      Further Updates on infrastructure will be posted to the GideonArchitecture 
      page.