Subject: Re: Web Interactivity From: allaire@worldmedia.com (Jeremy Allaire) Date: Wed, 5 Jul 1995 13:18:17 -0500

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David Oliver writes some interesting though
mostly uncompelling arguments about the
need and utility of UNIX as a Web Server
platform.  Here are my responses:
	
	<<>>

No; the Web is popular today because a number
of developers understood that the Internet's future
was in graphical desktop clients -- mostly Mac
and Windows, which were the driving forces in
computing, particularly Windows.  Had no one taken
the time and made the effort to make the Internet
a non-UNIX world, the Web would be no where but
a bunch of academic and R&D babble.

	<>

This is partially true.  Yes, thousands of people,
free tools, etc., helped, but it was rather
the distributed nature of the system wherein
anyone could become a publisher -- while the
tools have been poor, relative to the quality
standards set by such applications as Microsoft Office
or Lotus SmartSuite, the fact that no one controlled
the production and distribution of content was/is
the driving force -- not some world of UNIX
development.

In fact, the overwhelming majority of Web developers
are using Mac and Windows tools -- there's a reason,
they're simple and don't require knowledge of a C
shell -- a remnant of the past, I hope.

	<>

For those familiar with cost-accounting, the above
may seem a bit silly.  Linux is 'free' just as a
prisoners lunch is 'free'.  Along with Linux comes a life
of misery at the command line, where users must
complile every program they want to run, where there is
no formal support, few major commercial desktop applications,
and certainly no Industry standard plug-and-play (see Win95).

Let's get real, David, I don't see people running to the
software store begging for a UNIX aisle -- the bottom line
is that the real cost is in the enormous amount of time
required to use such an archane and complex system such as UNIX.

There was a reason for the Mac and PC/Windows . . . to free
people from DOS, from having to deal with commands and syntax
and what is more appropriately the domain of hardware
and software engineers.  Furthermore, PC-based graphical
computing was a cognitive revolution, it was an evolution of
computing tools that enabled a greater and greater share of
people to use them.  Let's not take a step back.

	<>

Of course, and most of them are essentially useless outside
of basic development.  Those that enable more complex development,
such as Perl or C integration require just that -- Perl or C
integration.  Companies, IS departments, schools, etc., are not
just about to run out and abondon their knowledge base in favor
of some system that is more complex, costs more in training,
and require enormous amounts of time for building any sort of
sophisticated application.

CGI interface tools, database gateways, and other things
that are currently available are pretty limited -- what's needed
are tools that don't require ANY knowledge of CGI, that plug
into a high-performance multi-threaded and multi-processing
system, that tie into the vast majority of database that
exist in the world today, and further, that play into the hands
of the largest community of software developers in the world --
e.g. Windows developers.  This happens to be the community/market
that will drive tools development on the Internet, whether you
like or not.

	<<>>>

Yes, in Nov 1993 the Web was introduced to the standard
computing world -- e.g. PCs and Macs.  That introduction
helped bring the world of non-UNIX computer users and
developers to the Internet -- it also created an enormous
demand for tools; not UNIX tools, PC tools and Mac tools
that could free these users from having to deal with such
a difficult system.

Furthermore, lets take even a _cursury_ look at the Web
tools market.  Early on, there were many freeware tools,
and continue to be shareware and freeware tools on all
platforms.  But lets take a look at where the
commercial computing market is taking things.

Servers:  there are over 10 commercially developed
and supported servers for Windows and NT, 1 for the
Mac, and 2 for UNIX (Netsite, OpenMarket).

O'Riley, long the bastion of UNIX gurus, is now out
pushing NT as the future platform for the Web, 
shoving, of course, there absolutely fabulous
NT-based WebSite Web server  -- you can actually
administer it without having to *touch* a command
line; no compile involved.  Remote admin, multi-homing,
runs as a service, etc.  $300 at your local bookstore.
Try it:  http://website.ora.com.

There are well over 30 companies building various
HTML authoring tools, mostly for Windows.

	<<>

Just as I might thank UNIX for inspiring WindowsNT,
it mighty also thank WindowsNT from freeing me from
UNIX.  Likewise, I'll thank UNIX for inspiring the
Web, and thank the Web community for freeing me
from UNIX.

	<>

Yes, of course they are.  And businesses are looking
for solutions that can be delivered today for a
minimum of cost and that are likely to be future
candidates in the technology landscape.  While some
mighty put there eggs in the Java basket, others
mighty simply wait for the days of Cairo -- 
distributed and secure OLE apps -- which, incidentally
is well beyond the alpha stages of Sun's technology.

> First, as Web publishers, we must be asking
> what we can do to enhance and develop our
> technologies to be more dynamic (literally,
> no static pages) and user-driven -- more
> interactive, not necessarily in the user-to-user
> framework (though this is a big part of the issue).

	<<>>

This is not my point at all.  My point is that people
need to build more than hypertext pages; they need to
build true client-server applications with state
systems, semaphores, real-time data and graphics
generation, and a high-degree of user choice
and interaction -- not clicking hypertext.  All of
this is quite doable with existing Web protocols.
  I agree
with you very strongly that the Web has been embarced
because it allowed for the easy distribution of such
applications.  Some common ground?  :-)

For a demo of what I'm talking about, see a tool
I developed -- a basic Web conferencing system.
No code was involved in writing the system, only
embedded SQL.  It's running on Windows NT.  It
took me about a week's time.

http://www.creativeis.com/talk/working.htm


	<>

This is simply not true.  Practically every programming tool
on UNIX is available on NT.  Fortunately, most developers
choose not to use those tools.  Instead, they choose
Borland C++, Microsoft Visual C++, etc., because these
have the most advanced classes and widely supported third-party
libraries in the world.

	<>

Ah, without being too harsh, no one is calling for people
to server on DOS/Windows or the Mac -- that would be
foolish for large-scale systems.  I'm talking about
Windows NT, which is quickly becomming the worlds
most popular system for client/server computing.  The
entire CompuServe infrastructure (and soon the Microsoft
Network) is a distributed network of NT servers running
SQL Server and various object-database tools such as Poet.

NT is a fully multi-threaded multi-tasking 32-bit OS with
all your favorite UNIX tools.  It is also the only 
server-OS (outside of Tandem and SCO 5.0) that truly
supports Semetrical Multi-Processing (SMP).  You can scale
up to dozens of processors accross a distributed network.
In fact, Tandem, long the leader in distributed transaction
processing systems -- is slowly abonding their own UNIX
flavor in favor of NT.  They're reading the market correctly,
I think.

You can pick up a copy of NT at your local software store for
$99.

	<>

No, the point is that what has driven the commercial desktop computing
world has been first, the desktop database revolution manifested
early on in DOS database tools, and now in more sophisticated client/server
tools.  This created an enormous pool of competent software developers.
They are all ready and available for developing relational-database
apps on the Web.  Second, there is a generation of visual programmers
in the Windows world (100,000s) that are eager to use their talents
on the InfoBahn.

The base of UNIX programmers that have been active on the Internet
is tiny in comparison with the market of software developers in the 
Windows world.  It would seem to me both short-sighted and myopic
to not tap this enormous base of talent and knowledge.

	<>

There is no comparison.  An open market in hardware
in the PC world has created substantially cheaper
alternatives.  Comparable SUN systems cost $5000 to
$20,000 more.

Dual-processing 120Mhz PCI/SCSI systems run under
$5000.

	<>

Yeah, that pretty much seems like what the corporate
and consumer markets are begging for.  Maybe they're
just blind and need to be led . . . 

> (though, if folks read last weeks Info-World --
> http://www.infoworld.com -- they might learn some
> interesting and frightening things about Java's
> history).

	<<>>

In essence, the story read that Java, along with
about 10 other projects internal to Sun, were just
about to get the Axe when the Java team decided
to independently release their code and unleash
a Web about the system.  Having to save face,
Sun turned an embarassing internal mutiny into
a PR success by pushing Java as a nex-gen distributed
network application.  The story continues that
the technology is no where as far along as any
hopes, at this point.

	<>

$6k plus the cost of learning, support, etc.  Companies
just are not going to deploy mission-critical systems
on a totally unsupported OS and on totally unsupported
software.  They have enough of a nightmare trying to
train and support very well designed and documented
software and systems.

	<>

AH, on this I think you are sadly mistaken . . . time
will tell, eh?

Best,

Jeremy Allaire


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