client side scripting

[Alex Martelli]

"Stijn Gunst" <stijn.gunst at student.kuleuven.ac.be> wrote in message
news:3B0587D3.8388C737 at student.kuleuven.ac.be...
> is it possible to write python scripts embedded in HTML-tags to run on
> the web-client in whatever browser  (netscape, ie, ..), like javascript
> or java-applets or is there a project trying to solve these problems?

It's possible with reasonably recent versions of IE *IF* the client
machine has Python installed (with ActivePython or win32all) as
ActiveScript.  AFAIK, Netscape, differently from Microsoft, doesn't
support multiple alternative clientside script languages -- Javascript
is all you get (I hope this isn't so any more in Mozilla, but I think
it still is).  In any case, ARE you willing to rely on the end-user
having properly installed whatever add-ons or plug-ins they need?


> scripting). Users should be able to use their own webbrowsers and

Oh, they can, IF those web-browser have a halfway-decent architecture
(including "of course" the ability to specify multiple scripting languages).

It's a pity that, so far, generally-maligned Microsoft seems to be the
only one to have designed their browser halfway-decently in this sense.

Of course, COM helps (COM is technology #1 in my book:-) -- without
it, nifty layered-on-top-of-it technologies such as ActiveScripting would
be more of a problem.  Maybe XPCOM enables Mozilla (at long last!) to
do something similar -- or maybe the bonobo thing that was recently
mentioned on the 'win ws lin' thread -- but I suspect (fear, since I'm
about to make Linux once more a big part of my computing:-) that
the ability, even if it's there, is still only theoretical today...?


Alex