Abstracts - 12th Systems Administration Conference
(LISA '98)
NeoWebScript: Enabling Webpages with Active Content Using Tcl
Karl Lehenbauer
NeoSoft, Inc.
Abstract
NeoWebScript marries the world's most popular webserver, Apache, with the
Tcl programming language to create a secure, efficient, server-side scripting
language that gives webpage developers simple-yet-powerful tools for creating
and serving webpages with active content.
The ability to embed NeoWebScript code into existing webpages, without
requiring a URL name change, leverages work done with webpage creation
tools such as Netscape Communicator and Net Objects Fusion, while not disturbing
links from remote sites and search engines.
A mature application, NeoWebScript-equipped webservers are currently
in production on the Internet, serving real-world loads of millions of
webpage "hits" per day.
This paper describes the driving forces behind the creation of NeoWebScript,
and how those forces shaped its design and evolution into its current-day
form. NeoWebScript's software architecture is described, and its capabilities
are demonstrated using numerous examples, including webpage "visitor counters",
rotating banner ads, queuing email, posting news, storing form submissions
into Berkeley-style dbopen
databases, and creating graphical images on the fly.
Finally, NeoWebScript's current status is summarized, our near-term
plans are detailed, and conclusions are drawn.
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