Re: Xavante/Cgilua: custom handler - please critique

[William Trenker <wtrenker@...>]

On 8/14/05, Javier Guerra <javier@guerrag.com> wrote:
>
> xavante.httpd.addHandler() is a public function, Sajax uses it to register
> callbacks dynamically.

Excellent!  I really should look into Sajax, too.

> special-purpose code is cheaper; and as you go, you'll create your own library
> of helper functions.  (we're still missing a lot of these)

Of course the ease of writing helpers / special-purpose-code depends
significantly on having a rich API from the httpd / cgi core.

> well, i've just coded cookies and session modules for Xavante, to be used from
> handlers, without CGILua.

Hmm.  I'm surprised.  Why not refactor CGILua to expose more of its
functionality in its API and use that within Xavante?  Why rewrite
code that's already available?

> there's still no parameters parsing; but a simple :
>   for k,v in string.gfind (qry, "([^&=]*)=([^&=]*)")
>     params[k]=unencode (v)
>   end
> 
> gets you a long way

Well it's a start but then CGILua already goes much further and
handles multipart forms including file uploads.  Again, why not
refactor CGILua's API rather than duplicate the code?

> and as for ".lp CGILua scripts" i've just added the capability to write
> handlers using the same syntax as .lp   note that these aren't CGILua .lp!
> just a neat way to write xavante handlers

Meaning that such a xavante handler can include parameter substitution
(<%= cgi.mytextinput %>)?  I don't understand. (Is this new code in
cvs?)

> What else is coming?... two things: a framewark to write a full website as a
> lua module (using require() and module())  and a coroutine-based procedural
> framework, where a user session is handled as program flow...

So xavante is evolving from a web server with built-in cgi scripting
support towards a web applications framework?  That sounds very
promising.

Thanks, Javier.

Bill