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Linux is the kernel, and the TCP/IP stack is in the kernel. So you can't tell from a TCP/IP connection whether a host is running Redhat, Slackware or Debian.

What the survey site is probably doing is looking at information tags within the Server: field of the HTTP response headers. Redhat does advertise itself there in the vendor-supplied Apache packages, but some other distros don't. Slackware's Apache packages will return nothing more descriptive than 'Unix' in the Server string.

So not all distros will reveal themselves, and anybody can easily prevent this information from being shown period with a simple Apache configuration directive. I think that's a good idea to do on your own servers, by the way. Give attackers the least info possible at your setup.

Moreover, the proposed idea of using a central server to coordinate and select rules doesn't work, because everybody gets the same rule sets sent to them and the spammers work out how to bypass them. Bypass one, bypass them all.

I've long wished this were the case, but it's not really possible the way things work right now. Remember how logins used to pop up that little dialogs box for user and password? That's good old HTTP authentication, which is codified in the HTTP standard with well-defined response codes that let the browser know if the login was successful or not. But you just don't see those used anymore (for good reasons), so instead we have all these form-based logins that just return web pages that say whether or not the login worked. Unfortunately, there's no good way for Mozilla to look at these pages and determine whether or not the login was successful, so it just has to guess.

Perhaps an extension to add special HTTP headers on the status of login attempts could solve this problem, but until then, Mozilla can't really do much better than assuming it worked.

I think your argument is correct. Who could possibly think there's other companies or organizations that build influential software that people use all the time?

No, truly, Microsoft is the only place to create influential software...

Ok, I think I understand your post. BUT, what I don't get is how macros get LISPers all excited about macros when macros look so much like regular function calls.

For example, if PSILISP were just a bunch of functions in Java, we could write code that would do essentially the same thing with the same number of lines of code. Furthermore it COULD (though it often isn't I admit) be just as readable as the LISP version. No?

Really, I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just missing the magic here. I'm sure that part of what I'm missing is context. If this were the 1970's and I were faced with decision to choose the most productive environment and I got to decide between something like BAL, COBOL, FORTRAN, or LISP; I'm sure I would choose LISP. In the context of that day and age, LISP and macros WOULD be magic. And, I'm not saying LISP is no longer useful, it just has a much more mature heritage and I'm sure that its younger cousins probably stole much from it.

BTW - If you would like to see a web development framework that provides a full object oriented treatment of web development semantics, give Tapestry a look. Granted, it's a Java framework, but you may find some inspiration for features there. In particular, you might like to see the components that Tapestry provides a developer. It is, by far, the best UI layer framework for web development I have found in the Java world. I compare its productivity to the ASP.NET framework, which I have also used for work (say what you like about .NET; it's productive as all hell).

Ok, I think I understand your post. BUT, what I don't get is how macros get LISPers all excited about macros when macros look so much like regular function calls.

For example, if PSILISP were just a bunch of functions in Java, we could write code that would do essentially the same thing with the same number of lines of code. Furthermore it COULD (though it often isn't I admit) be just as readable as the LISP version. No?

Really, I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just missing the magic here. I'm sure that part of what I'm missing is context. If this were the 1970's and I were faced with decision to choose the most productive environment and I got to decide between something like BAL, COBOL, FORTRAN, or LISP; I'm sure I would choose LISP. In the context of that day and age, LISP and macros WOULD be magic. And, I'm not saying LISP is no longer useful, it just has a much more mature heritage and I'm sure that its younger cousins probably stole much from it.

BTW - If you would like to see a web development framework that provides a full object oriented treatment of web development semantics, give Tapestry a look. Granted, it's a Java framework, but you may find some inspiration for features there. In particular, you might like to see the components that Tapestry provides a developer. It is, by far, the best UI layer framework for web development I have found in the Java world. I compare its productivity to the ASP.NET framework, which I have also used for work (say what you like about .NET; it's productive as all hell).

Why steal software? Many software packages are reasonably priced, and many are offered with rebates and upgrade coupons. See more here

On the other hand, most of the truely great apps are written for linux. They are usually feature packed, have very little security problems, etc.. Examples would be MythTV, Apache, MySQL, the GIMP, Mozilla and Firefox, etc... The list goes on!

--
Craploads of deals updating in real time from all the best deal sites.

Perhaps it's not mentioned very often because it's obvious, but I think it's an advantage for systems like PHP, or Rivet that they scale down very well.

What does this mean? That they don't consume too much in the way of resources, and are very easy to get started with. This puts a dynamic web site within reach of more people, which is a good thing, even if inevitably some of them will, yes, write crappy code. It is another example of the "worse is better" philosophy.

I just wish they had used Tcl or something else already out there instead of creating a language that in and of itself is nothing very exciting, and has been a bit slow.

• There are many very great libraries. E.g. OJB is a great database layer and SWT can create nice GUIs. All these Apache Common Tools are also very great and allow quick application development.
• Eclipse is the best IDE I ever saw. The great refactoring features and the hot code replace speed up development immensely.

• There are many very great libraries. E.g. OJB is a great database layer and SWT can create nice GUIs. All these Apache Common Tools are also very great and allow quick application development.
• Eclipse is the best IDE I ever saw. The great refactoring features and the hot code replace speed up development immensely.

First of all, to the people who wonder what's so great about Apache 2.x you should take some time to understand that Apache 2 is a completely new way of thinking about the HTTP server paradigm. Apache 2.x is now no longer simply an HTTP server but a protocol server that can serve anything you can write, FTP, SMTP whatever. In fact Apache 2.x FTP server has been darn stable.

Besides the threaded model and the above paradigm shift, there is also the great improvements in the build system, the API and IPv6 support. You can read all about it here: New Features 2.0 . Do yourself a favor and start learning Apache 2.x now, you will not regret it down the line.

Finally, I believe that with the 2.0.50 release the contributors have solved some of the most serious bugs and have delivered one of the most stable releases of Apache to date. Of course time will tell if there are significant bugs, I wouldn't go upgrading your production environment tomorrow. But the folks there have worked really hard on the big bugs and I have to give them a big thank you.

The full change list is here: Changes 2.0.50 . They have fixed a very serious stderr bug, several annoying ldap bugs, addressed various other security and performance issues and generally done a great job.

Way to go folks. Thank you!!!

First of all, to the people who wonder what's so great about Apache 2.x you should take some time to understand that Apache 2 is a completely new way of thinking about the HTTP server paradigm. Apache 2.x is now no longer simply an HTTP server but a protocol server that can serve anything you can write, FTP, SMTP whatever. In fact Apache 2.x FTP server has been darn stable.

Besides the threaded model and the above paradigm shift, there is also the great improvements in the build system, the API and IPv6 support. You can read all about it here: New Features 2.0 . Do yourself a favor and start learning Apache 2.x now, you will not regret it down the line.

Finally, I believe that with the 2.0.50 release the contributors have solved some of the most serious bugs and have delivered one of the most stable releases of Apache to date. Of course time will tell if there are significant bugs, I wouldn't go upgrading your production environment tomorrow. But the folks there have worked really hard on the big bugs and I have to give them a big thank you.

The full change list is here: Changes 2.0.50 . They have fixed a very serious stderr bug, several annoying ldap bugs, addressed various other security and performance issues and generally done a great job.

Way to go folks. Thank you!!!

The true benefit of projects such as this is their independence from the big brother corporations

You mean like Sun and HP funding the Apache group?

Or Novell and Ximian underwriting the Mono Project?

Or IBM contributing to F/OSS?

Do you think these and other projects would be where they are today without the backing of serious money/resources?

Well, here is a list of new features. Whether or not those features are worth the upgrade hassle is up to you.

I am using PHP 5 and works great. The trick is to compile Apache using the prefork MPM.

Quote from http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/prefork.html

This Multi-Processing Module (MPM) implements a non-threaded, pre-forking web server that handles requests in a manner similar to Apache 1.3. It is appropriate for sites that need to avoid threading for compatibility with non-thread-safe libraries. It is also the best MPM for isolating each request, so that a problem with a single request will not affect any other.

Using Apache 2 in this method will make it work perfectly with PHP.

Why do you expect your employer to not read you emails?

Depends where you are though, this list is US-centric:

Vendors List

Someone else has already suggested the JBoss group, there's also the Core Developers Network, both of them provide support in Europe.

CONNECT BY goes back to at least 7.1.x. Oracle has handled hierarchical data for a long, long time.

Odd. Oracle claimed otherwise. Sounds like another one of their marketing tricks.

You may find that you can build your app on the defacto standard DBMS and before Oracle or Microsoft buys whoever you're dealing with now. :)

Thankfully, there's no chance of that. ;-)

I'm confused. I heard the words "XML" and "database" in the one sentence. Then I read "good" and realised you don't know what you are talking about.

Trust me, sir. I'm well aware of what I speak. Besides the fact that "good" never appeared in my post (though it was implied, so we'll let it slide), I've spent quite a bit of time with some of the most popular SQL databases (PostGreSQL - good, MySQL - sucks, Oracle - good for BIG stuff, MSSQL - often sucks for anything but "small" dbs, DB2 - just shoot me now, Pervasive sQL - BTrieve sweetness, etc.) and with Apache Xindice. After working with Xindice on a real project, I feel like XPATH is a breath of fresh air. I certainly wouldn't recommend it for everything, but it's certainly nice for some small databases.

I gave a brief explanation of how I used Xindice here. Just keep in mind that there doesn't always have to be "ONE TRUE SOLUTION" to everything and you'll do just fine. :-)

In what in this thread is referred to as SQL DBMS, the records have fixed length fields to make indexing possible.

This seems like an odd statement. As far as I'm aware, there are absolutely no requirements on the length of indexed fields. If there was, fields like VARCHARs couldn't be indexed. Many databases may optimize indexes based on size, but the real reason for maximum field length comes from the days of ISAM files. (Indexed flat files with fixed length records.)

I guess you could index an XML, but all index addresses would be wrong the minute you change a value in the first record.

XML databases don't actually work that way. It may seem "obvious" to create a database out of a massive XML file, but most implementations such as Apache Xindice actually deal with small XML fragments that hang off a larger table structure. Each "table" holds multiple fragments as records. If a record changes, the database reindexes the record in a similar fashion to SQL databases.

The primary differences between XML DBs and SQL DBs are that tables can be hierarchical, and the data can be hierarchical. A lot of details (such as the lack of NULL) also differ, but those are the main points.

Whats so hard?

The "arbitrary XML" part. You must have existing mappings set up to process the XML. New forms of XML thus require a great deal of work on the part of the DB developer.

XML databases such as Xindice OTOH, allow you to create a table and insert XML in whatever format you chose. XPATH queries take a bit of getting used to, but you can query on tags, attributes, CDATA, or whatever else you chose at whatever level in the XML hierarchy you choose. Thus I can query for the list of addresses for all records that have a firstname attribute that is LIKE "Bob". Or I can dive down to the individual address level and query for all records that have an address of "Drury Lane" (important for tracking down the Muffin Man when you need a giant gingerbread cookie).

It's not like you can't do this stuff with SQL databases, it's simply a different method of accomplishing the task. Depending on the data you're working with, an XML database may very well be a more efficient method of storage and queries.

Antlr is simply the java port of what was originally called the Purdue Compiler Construction Tool Set

And I fail to understand where you've come up with the idea that webstart ties you down with some licensing restrictions.

I'm no fan of Java3d either (I much prefer the opengl bindings), but please get your facts straight... or at least cite your sources.

"yeah and apache doesn't work on windows either"

Wrong, there is are win apache builds availible. Look here. IMO, not the best option for a real production web server, but should work OK in a pinch for Virdows 98+.

IIS had problems, now it is ISS, I just hope that SSI are okay.

Anyway, to bring this back on topic, this situation requires a server side fix. I'm sorry, I can't tell every customer to switch browsers.

It's been fixed. Here's the patch

"It's just absurd. They really don't take into account the target marked for the solution. And the current system setup is running just fine and dandy without any trouble. Should the number of visitors increase ten-fold (which it never will), well... Add some slave database servers and more webservers. Suddenly you have the board of directors going: -Uhm, why didn't you write the system in Java. We hear Java is a good thing. Java is scalable. Java is more secure."

I've encountered this a few times myself but I have a different view point on it. I agree that many sites will never grow enough to worry about scalability but the one thing that does almost always happen is new features being added.

I've personally seen a few PHP sites that run flawlessly but they are not easily extendable. They are written in such a manner that developers are afraid to work with it because it's too easy to break stuff, or adding new features will involve rewriting big chunks of code. I will admit that I've seen this in other programming languages as well such as .asp and .jsp/java.

If you consider programming styles such as struts, cocoon, webwork, etc. which encourage the MVC pattern it makes huge difference in the maintainability of web applications down the road. I find that java applications tend to use either these types of frameworks or custom ones that follow the same idea while I find many PHP applications are more like spaghetti code that do work fine but are a nightmare to add to in the future. They are quickly built but the lumping of PHP code in HTML makes it hard on projects where designers need to update the look and feel of a website but have no idea how to change their pages without mucking up the code.

I'm not saying that is the case all the time but what I am noticing is that PHP is gravitating towards OO programming and seems to be encouraging the separation of business logic from presentation logic, which is a very good thing. The argument that PHP is not as scalable as Java really should be more like PHP is not as extensable or maintainable as Java, but this certainly seems to be changing for the better.

"It's just absurd. They really don't take into account the target marked for the solution. And the current system setup is running just fine and dandy without any trouble. Should the number of visitors increase ten-fold (which it never will), well... Add some slave database servers and more webservers. Suddenly you have the board of directors going: -Uhm, why didn't you write the system in Java. We hear Java is a good thing. Java is scalable. Java is more secure."

I've encountered this a few times myself but I have a different view point on it. I agree that many sites will never grow enough to worry about scalability but the one thing that does almost always happen is new features being added.

I've personally seen a few PHP sites that run flawlessly but they are not easily extendable. They are written in such a manner that developers are afraid to work with it because it's too easy to break stuff, or adding new features will involve rewriting big chunks of code. I will admit that I've seen this in other programming languages as well such as .asp and .jsp/java.

If you consider programming styles such as struts, cocoon, webwork, etc. which encourage the MVC pattern it makes huge difference in the maintainability of web applications down the road. I find that java applications tend to use either these types of frameworks or custom ones that follow the same idea while I find many PHP applications are more like spaghetti code that do work fine but are a nightmare to add to in the future. They are quickly built but the lumping of PHP code in HTML makes it hard on projects where designers need to update the look and feel of a website but have no idea how to change their pages without mucking up the code.

I'm not saying that is the case all the time but what I am noticing is that PHP is gravitating towards OO programming and seems to be encouraging the separation of business logic from presentation logic, which is a very good thing. The argument that PHP is not as scalable as Java really should be more like PHP is not as extensable or maintainable as Java, but this certainly seems to be changing for the better.

Even if Microsft buys NAI, they would not get the SpamAssassin trademark.

SpamAssassin is in the process of becoming a project in the Apache Software Foundation. That process requires the trademark to be assigned to the ASF, which is already in progress as can be seen in this status report.

Every day I get dozens of delivery attempts at an address I used to run a listserver on, which has been invalid since 1998. No human has *ever* been behind that address. The spambags do not care about invalid addresses.

How true. But you can use that against them!

I have several addresses like that. Some were accidentally created for me on other sites by scripts like wpoison. Others are spammer-specific mutations of my real address. And I have a number of old addresses, like special ones generated for Usenet News posts five years back.

Now I feed them all into SpamAssassin's Bayesian classifier. I even looked in my logs to see the 100 most common choices for dictionary attacks and feed those in, too.

Now, thanks to the spammers, I get a lot less spam in my inbox! Yesterday's score was 356 messages fed to the trap, 145 spams in my spam folder, 1 spam in my inbox, and no false positives.

I've also done this recently. I did consider paying for a .Mac account, but the only value I'd get out of it (being a technical person who runs his own SMTP/IMAP/HTTP etc. services elsewhere), would be the calendar publishing and backup services. I didn't think these were worth the money, especially given the space restrictions in iBackup on .Mac. Saying this, iBackup is a very nice tool and can do backups to local network shares, CD/DVD etc. so it's not just for use with .Mac.

So I looked at putting together my own alternatives for the .Mac services I thought I would use. First on the list was the calendar sharing. It was easier than I thought to set up mod_dav for Apache. iCal then just published seamlessly to my WebDav service. I also get the added benefit of being able to use the WebDav service to do online backups, which OSX uses without blinking.

I did try to use my WebDav service with Windows XP, but there is a known problem with XP regarding its use of "online folders", i.e. WebDav services. The problem seen with Apache is that XP sends Domain/Username & Password authentication, whereas Apache's mod_dav only wants Username & Password. There is a patch to "fix" this, but personally I drew the line at patching my service to make it work with a broken implementation.

In terms of an iBackup replacement, I've been looking at a few packages. RSyncX seems quite good and popular, as does Impression. However, seeing as though OSX is so nicely Unix-based, I may well use something like Flexbackup or my own scripts based on backup/restore (the BSD tools) or rsync.

Life Balance is a neat piece of software for Palm handhelds. It is billed as "the to do list for real life". For every item, there is a simple slider that lets you set its relative importance. Life Balance helps you see what is most important, and what is most possible at any given time. Those who have used it seem to really like it. It's more than just a planner - it intends to help you improve your quality of life.
More detailed info is available, and it uses Apache software.

It is not a library of ready to use objects like CPAN is.

How is a library not a collection of "ready to use" objects?

Also java has no way to automatically download and install jakarta projects and resolve any dependencies.

Yes there is - it's called Maven. Though, many people just bundle their dependencies with their libraries. Sorry, there's nothing special about Perl in this regard.

Where is big searchable repository of java beans I can download and deploy in under a minute?

I wouldn't be surprised if Java has the largest base of reusable code compared to any other language, and it's only been around for 10 years or so.

Every job has its requirements; being a good programmer is being able to use the tools you have to solve the problem in a way that fits the requirements. Being a great programmer is knowing which tool is right for the job - and which isn't - and when they may have to look for something else.

php for real-time multiuser applications on the high level, C for real performance

perl for non-real-time application (unless you're slashdot and have oodles of resources at your disposal, even then, it's still inefficient)

Most copies of PHP use the equivalent of mod_perl -- i.e. they cache the compilation. Use mod_perl, cache your compilations, and you will find performance is as good if not better than PHP.

php for real-time multiuser applications on the high level, C for real performance

perl for non-real-time application (unless you're slashdot and have oodles of resources at your disposal, even then, it's still inefficient)

Most copies of PHP use the equivalent of mod_perl -- i.e. they cache the compilation. Use mod_perl, cache your compilations, and you will find performance is as good if not better than PHP.

Perl is way too slow and it's not designed for quickly scripting web sites.

What have they contributed ? How about The Tomcat Servlet Container ?

> Only if you haven't got a clue what you are talking about.

Hahahahahahahah... hahahahaha!!! I've taught PHP & MySQL at college level, and I'm a programmer who uses PHP & MySQL on a regular basis. So I happen to have some grounding in this subject matter. So, it's you who don't know what you're talking about, actually.

> This has nothing to do with the web.

Oh give it time.

> PHP is a general purpose scripting language, like Perl or Python. It has nothing to do with websites.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Of course it's a scripting language. I just have to laugh because you're pretending it was developed for 3d design. That's ridiculous. PHP was designed for the web, unlike Perl. It's a product of the Apache Software Foundation.

From the php.net site: PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.

I just don't understand why people use the "free" 10-user version of IIS to host publicly acessible websites. Here's a clue, guys!

Ahhh, I see, you tried for a whole hour to do something that THOUSANDS of others have been able to do (install Tomcat on linux) and when you can't do it (even after looking on Google!) you immediately conclude that it's Java's fault.

Hmm, interesting.

Well, since I have been able to install and run Tomcat and Java (Sun JDK an IBM) on RedHat and Suse boxes without issue in under an hour. I must assume that the problem lies with Debian or your configuration.

So, try this. At a command prompt type "java -version" and see what it says. Type "echo $JAVA_HOME" and see what it says. Find out what version of Debian you are using. See if your $JAVA_HOME\bin and $JAVA_HOME\lib are in your $PATH. Now take all this information and try the Tomcat mailing list and see what others have done to solve your problem. Oh, and Kaffe, which is only 1.1 compliant is not likely to work. You might want to stick with the Sun or IBM implementations.

If you are missing any of the above information, you may be one step closer to solving you problem.

So, is Debian now "crap" because you couldn't get it to work fast enough? Next time I have trouble installing Galeon, can I make the leap in logic that Mozilla is no good, or that I can post "Fuck you, C" on /.?

Posting opinions, especially strongly worded ones, that are based on false, mistaken, and outright wrong premises are FUD. No different thatn M$ saying the GPL is viral or AdT Institute saying Linus Torvalds stole the source code that became Linux.

Think before you post.

BTW, the above link took me about 3 minutes to find and I didn't even use Google.

To be truly free [speech] software, your language cannot be under a corporate thumb like that.

You say that as if its a universal axiom, yet its strangely unsupported in any way.

However, there is a LOT of open source Java software (the excellent work going on at Apache Jakarta being just one of many fine examples). There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that Java programmers can't play in the open source arena along with anyone else.

I find it very disturbing that RMS (and you) would attempt to verbally exclude all the open source software that thousands of developers are giving to the world every day simply to take a cheap political stab at Sun. I would like to think that F/OSS is INCLUSIONARY not exclusionary. However, I'm starting to think that RMS's position is becoming more and more that the only "true" open source software is that which is compiled using GNU tools. Everyone else can go rot.

Not to mention, taking RMS's stupid logic to the extreme, there's no open source software at all, because once its compiled, the software is controlled by the closed machine language developed by nasty companies such as Intel who just want to keep people under their thumb... uh, what?

This is similar to the evolution from ant to maven for Java developers. With ant, you gave the steps necessary to build your system, an imperative approach. With maven, you instead describe the shape of your system, and it figures out the steps.

Projects become more uniform as a result, and developers spend more time building the projects instead of maintaining build systems.

My only concern is the knowledge or experience that's lost as a result; larger and larger groups of developers have a smaller and a smaller understanding of the tools, environment, and subtle filesystem dependencies that systems tend to have, putting the experience in in-the-field debugging into a relative tiny number of cutting edge high-priced consultants.

By the way, I'm available. ;)

This is similar to the evolution from ant to maven for Java developers. With ant, you gave the steps necessary to build your system, an imperative approach. With maven, you instead describe the shape of your system, and it figures out the steps.

Projects become more uniform as a result, and developers spend more time building the projects instead of maintaining build systems.

My only concern is the knowledge or experience that's lost as a result; larger and larger groups of developers have a smaller and a smaller understanding of the tools, environment, and subtle filesystem dependencies that systems tend to have, putting the experience in in-the-field debugging into a relative tiny number of cutting edge high-priced consultants.

By the way, I'm available. ;)

I worked at McAfee too back when it was Network Associates, after they bought Deersoft, which I founded. Deersoft you'll recall was the company that made and marketed commercial versions of SpamAssassin. I'd just like to point out that we, the Deersoft folks, had nothing whatever to do with this patent. It appears to have originated with the prior-to-Deersoft SpamKiller product (the windows desktop app).

Also, the open source SpamAssassin project is likely 100% in the clear on this patent, even if it is valid (which is a separate question), since Network Associates and all of its employees who worked on the open source project have filed CLAs or CCLAs with the Apache Foundation. Section 4 of each document is worth a read. Looks like anyone who licenses a copy of the SpamAssassin code from ASF gets the right to use Network Associate's patent. Though IANAL.

I worked at McAfee too back when it was Network Associates, after they bought Deersoft, which I founded. Deersoft you'll recall was the company that made and marketed commercial versions of SpamAssassin. I'd just like to point out that we, the Deersoft folks, had nothing whatever to do with this patent. It appears to have originated with the prior-to-Deersoft SpamKiller product (the windows desktop app).

Also, the open source SpamAssassin project is likely 100% in the clear on this patent, even if it is valid (which is a separate question), since Network Associates and all of its employees who worked on the open source project have filed CLAs or CCLAs with the Apache Foundation. Section 4 of each document is worth a read. Looks like anyone who licenses a copy of the SpamAssassin code from ASF gets the right to use Network Associate's patent. Though IANAL.

Have you ever tried using regular expressions in Java?

Perhaps it's a little wordy, but I never had much trouble using Perl syntax in Java using the Jakarta ORO library

import org.apache.oro.text.perl.Perl5Util;
...
Perl5Util perl = new Perl5Util();
String expression = "/MYREGEX/";

if ( perl.match( expression, inputLine ) ){
//do something with the obj returned here
perl.getMatch();
}

That's not so bad, is it? Of course if you plan on using an expression many times there's ways to compile and use it multiple times, but again, it's really not that difficult.

Turns out they were approved as a top-level project on Wednesday. geronimo.apache.org is active now too.

Turns out they were approved as a top-level project on Wednesday. geronimo.apache.org is active now too.

While a lot of folk might suggest a database, structuring data is difficult, especially when you're spanning the gamut from "bits of green wire" to "Cray XMP, Serial no 700l33t4u", with and without photos, etc.

A simpler, scalable solution is to see all of this stuff as semistructured or even unstructured data - and point a search engine at it. (lots of people are heading this way - see eg ReiserFS, WinFS.

To create your data, just make web pages and get the search engine to index them. You can even make the whole process very simple by using a Wiki with built in full text search like MoinMoin, or just go for a proper search engine like lucene/

There are disadvantages. In the most basic setup you will not be able to search for "green things" because until you move from unstructured to semistructured data, there are no properties for the search engine to pick on. Even once you do add properties, you won't be able to ask "add up the cost of all my junk" which is easy in SQL. But the speed at which you can add stuff to your inventory is some compensation.