FW: [Devel] web interface development

[Mike Williams]

...forgot to send to the devel list at first...

---Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Williams
Sent: Wed 1/25/2006 12:42 PM
To: arek at perceval.net
Subject: RE: [Devel] web interface development
 
Arek,

I do envision a SOAP/XML interface in the future. However, I do not think that XML to HTML transformations are necessary; to me it seems to be best that multiple points of entry and exit be defined. For instance, a user can browse to index.php, which sets the output and input engines to the XHTML kind. From what I understand of SOAP (which is not very much), it is a messaging system. Access to another page, say soap.php, would allow SOAP requests. Additionally, a daemon could listen on a port for yet another form of communication. To me, the view layer should just be given data, how it presents and formats it should be a extensible architecture. Please let me know if this doesn't make any sense.

As for a secure SOAP engine, I am not totally certain I understand what you mean. I see an architecture where different SIP objects interact with each, executed by each command in turn, and then the combined end-data, stored in a Context object, would be passed to the view layer, to be presented in whatever form it chosen. Another layer would be responsible for storing and loading the domain objects. In this instance, LDAP could be supported as one method, SQL as another. Again, I think a pluggable storage model would work best, as the types employed are widely varied. 

I agree that your concept would be very interesting to investigate. Would you mind providing more information about the types of services you provide, how you developed this system, what architecture it is built on, what problems you encountered, and so on?

Does anyone have a problem with this system being developed in PHP? I have the majority of my experience here, and I think it would be well suited to a web-based project.

Thank you for the insight. I really appreciate the comments and thoughts.

---Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: Arek Bekiersz [mailto:arek at perceval.net]
Sent: Wed 1/25/2006 10:38 AM
To: Mike Williams
Cc: devel at openser.org
Subject: Re: [Devel] web interface development
 
Hi,

I see some movement on Docuwiki, but I send here to start some discussion.

Don't you want to base the Web interface on SOAP/XML/DSML/XSLT ?
This is how we do currently in our produtcion system. We have 3-layer 
architecture, but based on set of modern XML technologies:

* presentation layer (XML and DSML to (CSS)HTML transformations)
* middleware (logic layer):  (set of secure SOAP engines)
* lower layer: dbases and SIP components + Asterisks

In addition we build all this on Ldap directory base. Thus, we can model 
in directory every possible object, service or network node. With added 
benefits of Ldap, that are:

* security (via ACL rights and user classes: subscriber / operator / 
administrator class)
* redundancy (Ldap replication)
* territorial expansion (Ldap partitioning)
* speed (don't see difference between optimized Ldap and MySQL)
* easy programming (access to Ldap thru DSML and standard XML tools and 
XML transformations)


Proof of concept is that we use this in production for two years, in 
multidomain setup. It maybe then interesting to check this concept?


--
Regards,
Arek Bekiersz




Mike Williams wrote:
> I've started posting a few design for the web interface plans on the Doku Wiki, they are in an early stage and I will continue to add to them. Please discuss or ask questions on the development list. Also, I would like to see people start adding wanted features and goals to a Wiki Page.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> ---Mike