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Re: IDL on the Net (ION) [message #42016 is a reply to message #41978]

Tue, 14 December 2004 23:27

Michael Wallace
Messages: 409
Registered: December 2003

Senior Member

> Sure. Hang in there and thanks in advance for the additional
> information. We'll figure something out...

This won't help your current situation, but just thought I'd offer up a
couple of spare cents and some lessons learned when we tried to work
with ION-Java. At one time we were planning on using ION-Java because
at the time we knew of no other way to get dynamic IDL online. The
first drawback, before trying to work things through the tunnel broker,
is that we are a strictly JSP/Serlvet shop. Applets should be avoided
like the plague! ;-) Needless to say, ION-Java has this fascination
about being applet only, so it was hard to try to fit pieces into our
servlet paradigm.

We did try to force ION-Java into our holes and we eventually got some
things working, but it was always a hassle. We gave up on ION-Java and
instead have the web server spawn off IDL processes to execute the
little IDL tasks (typically making plots) we need. I wrote up some Java
classes to handle transmitting data to IDL via shared memory and
creation of the IDL process. Once the IDL process completes, we just
serve the file(s) IDL created back up to the user on the web site.

The nice things about this approach:
1.) No extra servers/ports to worry about/configure
2.) No extra ION-Java licenses
2a.) You only need a single IDL license on the web server
3.) Pretty fast* (at least faster than our experiences using ION-Java)

* In doing some small tests (~50,000 X/Y pairs plotted), I could send
numbers from Java to IDL via shared memory and have a basic plot done in
just a couple seconds. An equivalent plot through ION-Java seemed to
take many long seconds.

The only drawback I know of is if you really need to have Java applets,
there's really not much choice in the matter. There's probably a way to
work directly with IDL from an applet, but I'd guess that it'd be a lot
more pain than it's worth to get past all of the security restrictions
and such. If you're not required to have applets, you'll save yourself
a lot of pain just by communicating with IDL directly. At least that
was our experience.

-Mike

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[Message index]

		IDL on the Net (ION) By: Randy Shaughnessy on Thu, 09 December 2004 09:22
		Re: IDL on the Net (ION) By: Michael Wallace on Tue, 14 December 2004 23:27
		Re: IDL on the Net (ION) By: p.sommer on Wed, 15 December 2004 08:53
		Re: IDL on the Net (ION) By: Randy Shaughnessy on Tue, 14 December 2004 13:37
		Re: IDL on the Net (ION) By: p.sommer on Wed, 15 December 2004 06:47
		Re: IDL on the Net (ION) By: p.sommer on Tue, 14 December 2004 22:11
		Re: IDL on the Net (ION) By: p.sommer on Tue, 14 December 2004 22:04
		Re: IDL on the Net (ION) By: p.sommer on Sun, 12 December 2004 19:35

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