Re: Perl 5 Classes for the Web (CGI and libwww)

Roy T. Fielding (fielding@avron.ICS.UCI.EDU)
Thu, 16 Mar 1995 03:13:51 -0800


>> There is a very clear design difference between a Web client and an
>> HTTP server.  A client does not want the same stuff that a server needs,
>> and vice versa.  
> 
> But both can share bits where possible.

Only if the "bits" can be shared without absorbing the whole.
In other words, I don't want to have to load in the Plexus server
just to make a get request, even if Plexus does have some nice bits. ;-)

>> The perl4 libwww-perl is only a client-side library,
> 
> Absolutely, and the perl5'ifying I've been doing has the same
> philosophy.
> 
> But Tim is right in saying WWW::* is getting crowded. There may be
> more to WWW::* than a consistent client-side interface to protocols,
> so maybe the client-side interface should sit deeper down, like
> WWW::ClientInterface::HTTP.pm or something? That way others could
> decide that an CGI/HTML /whatever modules should also sit below WWW.

We can call it LWP instead -- I curse myself every time I have to 
say "libwww-perl" as part of a presentation!

......Roy Fielding   ICS Grad Student, University of California, Irvine  USA
                                     <fielding@ics.uci.edu>
                     <URL:http://www.ics.uci.edu/dir/grad/Software/fielding>