falcon wrote:
Hi,
Most of the web applications I work on are nothing more than front-ends
to postgresql. I have used Perl (CGI), Java, C# and am now looking at
Django. Each generation of frameworks lessens the pain of donig
web-apps, but it still seems redundant.
Does any one know of a framework where the database server (or a
web/app server integrated with a DB server) serves web pages? The
database contains the data-model; names of tables, names of attributes,
their types, foreign key relationships among tables...that's A LOT of
information. Sql query, views or stored procs could serve as 'reports'
served off the data. Perhaps the only thing that needs to be outside a
database is something that describes how the data is to be displayed
(CSS). There could be some java/c#/python/ruby/whatever engine which
takes all the information provided in the database and generate
html/xhtml, default css, javascript validation, etc....but all that
should be invisible to the user.
Any one know of such a framework?
(I'm asking this in pgsql because such a framework will have to be
fairly closely linked to a database...and I mainly use pgsql).
I don't know of one - I think I'd be a little uneasy with that kind of model to be honest on several levels.
Complex web applications involve a lot of complex logic, which tends to be very processor intensive. It's good to be able to scale such sites by
adding more processing engines and so partitioning the logic from the database is a good idea.
We use (and wrote) Whitebeam which goes some of the way to providing a framework. It cuts down the amount of database knowledge you need by having a
defined schema that represents data in a very flexible way (although you are free to develop SQL level applications if you want to). Whitebeam uses
Postgres to model arbitrary things and the relationships between those things. The things can be CMS web pages or product catalogues. JavaScript
(server side) is then used to add the semantic meaning to those things for each application.
The Whitebeam abstraction is higher than SQL (for example it represents arbitrarily deep directories of information and provides mechanisms for
searching those) while at the same time being flexible enough to allow a wide range of data-driven applications (CMS, discussion forums, surveys,
document repositories etc).
The programme files that drive the application are still stored in the standard file system. You could store those in the database as well if you
wanted to but you'd be adding more contention for a central resource. To get the best performance you have to have a pragmatic approach to building
your system.
Most applications also of course have to use other services such as sendmail, spell checkers, image tools. The datbase is only one part of the
solution, although admittedly one you have to get right!
Pete
--
Whitebeam : (http://www.whitebeam.org)
YellowHawk : (http://www.yellowhawk.co.uk)
