An Old Market in which Ada May Play

An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Jeffrey Carter]

I hate my browser. It displays ads before displaying the text I want to
see. Sometimes that can take several minutes, especially if an ad server
is down. It downloads graphics before displaying anything, such as text
I want to see. It pops up extra windows whether I want them or not. It
offers minimal cookie and cache management, and no "web bug" management.
It crashes about half the time I run it.

Perhaps you have your own pet peeves.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a browser that lets you tell it not to
contact sites from foreign domains? That lets you tell it to display
text before downloading graphics? That asks before opening extra
windows? That offers cookie, cache, and web-bug management? That's
robust and reliable? That doesn't do whatever you don't like about your
browser, and does do what you wish your browser did?

Unfortunately, I wouldn't know where to start learning about how to
write a web browser. But with AWS, AdaSockets, GtkAda, AdaCGI, and the
like, I'd think that Ada is ready for someone who has the necessary
knowledge. A user-friendly, reliable, portable, open-source browser in
Ada might expose the language's virtues to the unbelievers.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"You tiny-brained wipers of other people's bottoms!"
Monty Python & the Holy Grail

Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Dr Adrian Wrigley]

Jeffrey Carter wrote:
...
> Wouldn't it be nice to have a browser that lets you tell it not to
> contact sites from foreign domains? That lets you tell it to display
> text before downloading graphics? That asks before opening extra
> windows? That offers cookie, cache, and web-bug management? That's
> robust and reliable? That doesn't do whatever you don't like about your
> browser, and does do what you wish your browser did?
...
Don't you just use WWWShield? http://www.bitrot.de/wwwshield.html

This allows you to do almost everything you ask for.  Easily.
And it didn't involve writing a web browser.  It acts like a proxy
server, if I remember correctly, but rewrites the HTML to remove
the just that noone wants to see, according to a configuration file.

Of course, you could write a web browser in Ada.  But you can think of
better things to do, I'm sure...
--
Adrian Wrigley.

Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Jeffrey Carter]

Dr Adrian Wrigley wrote:
> 
> Jeffrey Carter wrote:
> ...
> > Wouldn't it be nice to have a browser that lets you tell it not to
> > contact sites from foreign domains? That lets you tell it to display
> > text before downloading graphics? That asks before opening extra
> > windows? That offers cookie, cache, and web-bug management? That's
> > robust and reliable? That doesn't do whatever you don't like about your
> > browser, and does do what you wish your browser did?
> ...
> Don't you just use WWWShield? http://www.bitrot.de/wwwshield.html
> 
> This allows you to do almost everything you ask for.  Easily.
> And it didn't involve writing a web browser.  It acts like a proxy
> server, if I remember correctly, but rewrites the HTML to remove
> the just that noone wants to see, according to a configuration file.

That's an interesting link, but why should I need to obtain this product
and a C++ compiler and beta test WWWShield on a new platform to do what
my browser should already do? And how can a separate C++ program make my
browser more robust and reliable?

I know that there are plenty of programs to make browsers behave more in
the user's interest, but it takes effort to track them down, install
them, and learn how they work. They often don't integrate with the
browser as well as something internal could. And there's always the
reliability problem; my browser crashed twice today.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"You tiny-brained wipers of other people's bottoms!"
Monty Python & the Holy Grail

Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Charles Hixson]

Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org> wrote in
news:3B2D8037.8D26618D@acm.org: 

> ...

OK.  One place to start would be with the Mozilla browser.  The 
code is freely available.  There's also one written in Python, 
Grail I think it was named.  But with Mozilla you could just 
take a pleasing snapshot and then start replacing the C routines 
with Ada routines.  It might not be the fastest approach, but 
you would immediately have a working browser, and you could make 
changes incrementally.  And it was designed to be worked on in 
small pieces.

-- 
Charles Hixson

Copy software legally, the GNU way!
Use GNU software, and legally make and share copies of software.
See http://www.gnu.org
    http://www.redhat.com
    http://www.linux-mandrake.com
    http://www.calderasystems.com/
    http://www.linuxapps.com/

Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Marin David Condic]

Well, the fact that there may be other products out there that do this
doesn't mean it would be a *bad* idea to do it in Ada. Think about it this
way: Numerous users of web browsers are way-unsophisticated in general
computer stuff - they just use Netscape or Internet Explorer because it is
what they have and it does the job. If there was an "Ada-scape-lorer" out
there that had buttons like "Turn Off Advertising" and "Display Text First"
and a bunch of other filter capabilities that were jsut sitting there
instead of something you have to download as an extra, it might be a really
good thing.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Dr Adrian Wrigley" <amtw@linuxchip.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3B2D5BA7.C7F6CCC3@linuxchip.demon.co.uk...
> ...
> Don't you just use WWWShield? http://www.bitrot.de/wwwshield.html
>
> This allows you to do almost everything you ask for.  Easily.
> And it didn't involve writing a web browser.  It acts like a proxy
> server, if I remember correctly, but rewrites the HTML to remove
> the just that noone wants to see, according to a configuration file.
>
> Of course, you could write a web browser in Ada.  But you can think of
> better things to do, I'm sure...
> --
> Adrian Wrigley.

Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Jeffrey Carter]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> Well, the fact that there may be other products out there that do this
> doesn't mean it would be a *bad* idea to do it in Ada. Think about it this
> way: Numerous users of web browsers are way-unsophisticated in general
> computer stuff - they just use Netscape or Internet Explorer because it is
> what they have and it does the job. If there was an "Ada-scape-lorer" out
> there that had buttons like "Turn Off Advertising" and "Display Text First"
> and a bunch of other filter capabilities that were jsut sitting there
> instead of something you have to download as an extra, it might be a really
> good thing.

That's what I meant, but didn't say very well.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"English bed-wetting types."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail

Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[B.Gaffney]

"Marin David Condic" wrote 
...
>                                     If there was an "Ada-scape-lorer" out
> there that had buttons like "Turn Off Advertising" and "Display Text First"
> and a bunch of other filter capabilities that were jsut sitting there
> instead of something you have to download as an extra, it might be a really
> good thing.
> 
> MDC

Well, this would be a good way to test the robustness of your browser.
 I'd imagine that most advertisers would consider such a filter A Bad
Thing :-).  They want you to be sitting there with nothing to do but
read their ads while you wait for your text to be displayed.  They'd
do whatever they could to break your browser.

                                        --Brian

Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Wes Groleau]

> Well, this would be a good way to test the robustness of your browser.
>  I'd imagine that most advertisers would consider such a filter A Bad
> Thing :-).  They want you to be sitting there with nothing to do but
> read their ads while you wait for your text to be displayed.  They'd
> do whatever they could to break your browser.

Not until it conquers a significant portion of the browser "market" ....

Notice these advertisers are not bothered by the fact that ten percent
of the viewers DETEST the #^%%^#^ BLINKING in these ads and won't buy
a product advertised that way.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <3B2D5BA7.C7F6CCC3@linuxchip.demon.co.uk>, Dr Adrian Wrigley <amtw@linuxchip.demon.co.uk> writes:
> Jeffrey Carter wrote:
> ...
>> Wouldn't it be nice to have a browser that lets you tell it not to
>> contact sites from foreign domains? That lets you tell it to display
>> text before downloading graphics? That asks before opening extra
>> windows? That offers cookie, cache, and web-bug management? That's
>> robust and reliable? That doesn't do whatever you don't like about your
>> browser, and does do what you wish your browser did?
> ...
> Don't you just use WWWShield? http://www.bitrot.de/wwwshield.html

I would be frightened by the claim on that site:

	It is tested on SGI IRIX 6.5 and Linux 2.0.36, but
	should be easily portable to other platforms.

Let's see, it was tested on two operating systems and both of them were
of the Unix style.  What is wrong with this picture ?

It is not just that I distrust the portability claim, but I distrust
any source so naive as to make it.  Please make a fuss when the list
of operating systems covered include MacOS 68K, Be, VMS, OS/400 and
MVS.  Then I will believe the developers have sufficient breadth of
experience to make a claim about "easily portable".

Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Marin David Condic]

There is often a myopic view of the universe that goes along with many users
of Unix-like OS's. Sometimes they see the universe as ***UNIX*** and a
handful of other curious but totally useless and insignificant products.
Sometimes the view is that EVERYBODY LOVES ***UNIX***!!! and the only people
who might register any complaints about it are the two or three people in
the whole universe who use those curious but totally useless and
insignificant other products. Portability thus begins to mean "I
successfully moved it from one flavor of Unix to another flavor of Unix".
True portability is really something much more difficult to achieve. (And
having "portability" between two or more flavors of Unix being a "Big Deal"
is itself a condemnation of Unix. It ought to be *trivial* to move code from
one Unix box to another - but apparently not.)

I have often encountered a similar attitude from people from New York. There
is ***NEW***YORK*** and there is "flyover country" that doesn't matter much.
Perhaps it comes from being "big" - everything smaller becomes viewed as
unimportant.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam> wrote in message
news:oEteewPzyKZ9@eisner.encompasserve.org...
> In article <3B2D5BA7.C7F6CCC3@linuxchip.demon.co.uk>, Dr Adrian Wrigley
<amtw@linuxchip.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
> I would be frightened by the claim on that site:
>
> It is tested on SGI IRIX 6.5 and Linux 2.0.36, but
> should be easily portable to other platforms.
>
> Let's see, it was tested on two operating systems and both of them were
> of the Unix style.  What is wrong with this picture ?
>
> It is not just that I distrust the portability claim, but I distrust
> any source so naive as to make it.  Please make a fuss when the list
> of operating systems covered include MacOS 68K, Be, VMS, OS/400 and
> MVS.  Then I will believe the developers have sufficient breadth of
> experience to make a claim about "easily portable".

Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Olivier Devuns]

"Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> writes:

> There is often a myopic view of the universe that goes along with many users
> of Unix-like OS's. Sometimes they see the universe as ***UNIX*** and a
> handful of other curious but totally useless and insignificant products.
> Sometimes the view is that EVERYBODY LOVES ***UNIX***!!! and the only people
> who might register any complaints about it are the two or three people in
> the whole universe who use those curious but totally useless and
> insignificant other products. Portability thus begins to mean "I
> successfully moved it from one flavor of Unix to another flavor of Unix".
> True portability is really something much more difficult to achieve. (And
> having "portability" between two or more flavors of Unix being a "Big Deal"
> is itself a condemnation of Unix. It ought to be *trivial* to move code from
> one Unix box to another - but apparently not.)

There's no such thing as portability, only software that's been ported.
Besides, I'm not under the impression that obstacles to porting were
put in purpose, by their respective authors, in most Unix flavors. Can the
same be said of some of the "other systems" ?

-- 
Olivier Devuns                         | Aonix: http://www.aonix.com

Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Marin David Condic]

Well, if I said "I just ported my code from VMS to VMS!" would you be very
impressed? But somehow saying "I ported from Unix(Sun) to Unix(HP)!" is
cause to celebrate? That's the problem that exists in the Unix-like world
because of the multiple flavors of it. The same (almost) problem exists
porting between different versions of Windows - but at least there the whole
thing is under one roof. OTOH, I never had any trouble taking my code from
VMS(VAX) to VMS(Alpha) or porting it upward in version numbers. Whatever
troubles may have come up were so trivial as to hardly be noticed and
certainly not something to brag about.

Ahhhhh.... If only DEC had made VMS available to the general public! (Oh,
but then, it probably would have ended up in just as bad a shape as Unix is
now...)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Olivier Devuns" <devuns@aonix.nospam.fr> wrote in message
news:str8wdua2o.fsf@aonix.fr...
> "Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> writes:
>
> There's no such thing as portability, only software that's been ported.
> Besides, I'm not under the impression that obstacles to porting were
> put in purpose, by their respective authors, in most Unix flavors. Can the
> same be said of some of the "other systems" ?
>

Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Olivier Devuns]

"Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> writes:

> Well, if I said "I just ported my code from VMS to VMS!" would you be very
> impressed? But somehow saying "I ported from Unix(Sun) to Unix(HP)!" is
> cause to celebrate? That's the problem that exists in the Unix-like world
> because of the multiple flavors of it. The same (almost) problem exists
> porting between different versions of Windows - but at least there the whole
> thing is under one roof. OTOH, I never had any trouble taking my code from
> VMS(VAX) to VMS(Alpha) or porting it upward in version numbers. Whatever
> troubles may have come up were so trivial as to hardly be noticed and
> certainly not something to brag about.

All I can say is that porting from Solaris to HP-UX is nothing to brag about
in my line of work.
Processor- and ABI- related issues are a different beast, which must be
handled with care. No OS I've seen yet could handle those tricky issues in a
really portable fashion !

> Ahhhhh.... If only DEC had made VMS available to the general public! (Oh,
> but then, it probably would have ended up in just as bad a shape as Unix is
> now...)

Well, first of all I doubt Ol'Ken Olsen ever recognized "the general public"
as a factor in the great scheme of things.
Regarding the shape of Unix now I think we're better off with Linux, FreeBSD
etc, than with VMS in the oh-so-wise hands of Compaq.
Your mileage may vary.

-- 
Olivier Devuns                         | Aonix: http://www.aonix.com