Re: Problems with a CGI script

[Benedikt Stefansson]

Alex Lancaster wrote:

> >>>>> "BS" == Benedikt Stefansson <address@hidden> writes:
>
> BS> On another note - but regarding this particular problem in Swarm -
> BS> I wonder if Marcus or Alex can explain why we even have the kernel
> BS> / archive object look for the users home directory when Swarm is
> BS> executing in batchmode? It seems like a bad idea overall, since it
> BS> would seem to decrease portability - i.e. dependency on Unix shell
> BS> type environments etc. Wouldn't it be a good idea to switch around
> BS> this code block when the batchmode flag is set? (I'm assuming that
> BS> only the archiver depends on knowing where the users home
> BS> directory is).
>
> Well one of the reasons is that the .swarmArchiver may be used for
> reasons other than simply stored the window positions for GUI
> simulations.  It's intended as a common resource for Swarm apps.

Still, I wonder if a "real batchmode" wouldn't be a good thing to have,
especially when Metrowerks comes out with that Objective-C compiler for
the PlayStation...(rim shot).

But seriously...Although it may not be very resource intensive, since
.swarmArchiver is as yet only used for storing window positions, one might
shave a few seconds of large batch runs by avoiding the overhead of the
"create Archiver, have it look for .swarmArchiver, etc." process, no?

> As far as the portability issue goes - even in WinNT we end up
> emulating a Unix-like environment.

I know, and although I am all to familiar with the Hive's resource
constraints and the arguments in favor of this strategy, I have to say
that Cygwin doesn't seem such a good long term solution for non-Unix
people. There might come a day when Swarm goes native in a non-Unix-like
environment. I hesitate to mention this once again, since I don't have the
time or resources to study the issue, but Apple's Yellow Box APIs might be
a portability solution that would work on the major non-Unix OSes, i.e.
Mac/Win/NT...

I realize however that at this point I'm referring to wet dreams of future
development where patching a few lines of code in initSwarm() would be a
mere triviality in comparison.

Regards,
-Benedikt

-- ----------------
Benedikt Stefansson                 address@hidden
Department of Economics, UCLA       Fax. (310) 825-9528
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1477          Tel. (310) 825-1777



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