Re: LYNX-DEV problem when page has only one input area

[Benjamin C. W. Sittler]

On Fri, 15 Nov 1996, Filip M Gieszczykiewicz wrote:

> You (Larry W. Virden, x2487) wrote:
> > Re: suggestion that lynx 3 be based on an SGML.
> > I think a better solution than using Lynx to fetch pages would be to
> > build, from scratch, a new browser, in Perl, using the excellent SGML,
> > WWW, etc. modules.  I would think that it would be easier to design
> > from scratch something using common components than to continue gluing
> > onto the existing framework more complex components.
> 
> Greetings. NoooooooOOOOoooooo! Perl is a pig.... the lynx binary is, what,
> 600kb stripped? Perl binary is 550KB stripped (5003) AND, then, on top
> of that, what will it be WITH all the libraries needed to "fake" a
> browser... 1MB... 
> 
> Oh, and don't forget all the problems we have NOW with sysadmins not
> installing current'ish versions of lynx... imagine tying the fate of
> lynx to perl... which I know some sysadmins personally hate... don't
> ask.

Well, first off I was going to use a fairly large SGML parser (983040
bytes stripped for the sun4 version,) so I'm afraid it's going to be a pig
regardless. Second, the actual "glue" may turn out to be simple enough to
write in C++ that it stays reasonable-sized. And I wouldn't be using perl
libraries to "fake" a browser, I'd be calling external programs (which
might be in perl, I suppose) from a perl browser *framework*. The external
programs (which will be pigs, I admit) will do most of the work. 
Does anyone have ideas for a better language than perl for prototyping
this thing? The language needs to have fairly powerful text-processing,
the ability to spawn arbitrary programs and play with their attached I/O
streams, and the ability to present a GUI when in X-Windows. It also needs
to work fine without X. If it's object-oriented, that's 10 points extra in
its favor ;), which is why I'm considering Python over Perl.

--
Ben


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