Received: with LISTAR (v1.0.0; list gopher); Sat, 12 Jan 2002 06:17:53 -0500 (EST) Return-Path: Delivered-To: gopher@complete.org Received: from softhome.net (jive.SoftHome.net [66.54.152.27]) by pi.glockenspiel.complete.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B06503B833 for ; Sat, 12 Jan 2002 06:17:52 -0500 (EST) Received: from xena ([210.84.115.144]) by softhome.net with esmtp; Sat, 12 Jan 2002 04:17:25 -0700 Message-ID: <003201c19b5a$e05d0900$907354d2@stonehavencres.net.au> From: "Nicholas Cull" To: gopher@complete.org Subject: [gopher] [revisit] Gopher server-side programming Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 22:18:32 +1100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 X-archive-position: 319 X-listar-version: Listar v1.0.0 Sender: gopher-bounce@complete.org Errors-to: gopher-bounce@complete.org X-original-sender: njcull@softhome.net Precedence: bulk Reply-to: gopher@complete.org List-help: List-unsubscribe: List-software: Listar version 1.0.0 X-List-ID: Gopher List-subscribe: List-owner: List-post: List-archive: X-list: gopher Hi all, This is a question that first appeared here around a year ago: has anyone, or is anyone looking at writing a Gopher server in Java, with Java Servlet support? From what I've read in the archives, the idea was thrown around for a while, but all development effort seems to have been spent on keeping the UMN gopherd server ticking over. My reasons for investigating a Java Servlet-based approach are: 1. A Java-based server would (in theory) be more portable. As far as I've worked out, the UMN server still is Unix-only? Ok, Hurd as well, but not Windows, etc. 2. The Servlet spec is supposedly designed generically enough to support protocols other than just HTTP. Gopher would be the most obvious protocol to test this theory with. (The other one would be FTP, but bleugh, the whole stateful nature of FTP would make this ugly.) Are Servlets really appropriate, at least in their current form? If there's an active development push for GopherServlets, we may be able to influence future Servlet specifications, by pointing out any design flaws or considerations that result from a Gopher implementation. 3. We may be able to base any new code on the Apache Tomcat server architecture, while also being able to look at the UMN gopherd server implementation for any implementation issues that arise. 4. Well, it's just cool, ok :P I'm curious to know any thoughts from the mailing list. At this point, I'm not ready to commit myself to do any active development in this area, since I'm currently tied up with two open source projects already. If anyone has already given the idea some serious thought, I'd be interested in your opinions. Thanks, Nicholas. mailto:run2000@users.sourceforge.net