Help: I want a chat script!

[Flavian Hardcastle]

Ello. I'm a newbie programmer using the Python language. I've recently 
completed a couple of the Python beginner's tutorials out there on the web 
(Josh Cagliati's, and Richard Baldwin's).

I have this ambitious idea for a project. I want to make my own browser 
based chat room. 

It seems simple. I basically wrote a little Python subroutine which takes 
input via the Python IDE, and writes a little html document using IO 
commands. Voila! Un chat program! Albeit an extremely simple one at first. 
Now if I could just train the little bugger to take input from a web 
browser I'd be in business. I figured the easiest way to do this was to 
write an html form that writes the input to a text or dat file, and my prog 
can extract the data from that and print it back to web page

But ... I can't find any easy way to do that, to my suprise. I tried 
looking through all the html tutorials for information about forms. The 
nearest I could come to, specific to my requirements, was tutorials on how 
to set up your own messageboard. Apparantly, I have to get a web server 
that supports CGI (whatever that is), use a telnet client(whatever that is) 
to connect to it. I also have to learn PERL (What? A whole new programming 
language?), and ideally the server should be UNIX (A whole new operating 
system?).

I can't believe I have to learn 4 things at once just to get to get input 
from a browser! Surely there must be an easier way to do it?

If I could,  I would much rather be able to have the script on my PC, use 
my personal web server to host it. Then I'd invite a net buddy or two into 
it to help me perfect the script. And then I might think about actually 
putting the room on a proper server, if I don't lose interest in the 
project by then.


-- 
"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether 
a man is wise by his questions."  Naguib Mahfouz

netvegetable at dingoblue.net.au