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Posted to modperl@perl.apache.org by Gunther Birznieks <gu...@extropia.com> on 2001/10/25 06:26:41 UTC
[OT] excellent modperl/etoys article by Perrin revisited
I saw an article in today's ComputerWorld that indicates the technology et
al for eToys was bought by another toy firm (KB) and they plan to put it up
to sell toys for this holiday season again.
http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO65008,00.html
Perrin or others involved in the old eToys (or anyone in the new eToys) --
does anyone know if this is the same mod_perl technology you guys wrote?
I think it will make an interesting success story follow up if it is
successful because it would also show how easy it was for the intellectual
property written in mod_perl to be resold and reintegrated into another IT
infrastructure which would make VCs happy (ie they would think more about
being able to fund projects based on mod_perl if they know they could
always resell the IP).
Thanks,
Gunther
__________________________________________________
Gunther Birznieks (gunther.birznieks@eXtropia.com)
eXtropia - The Open Web Technology Company
http://www.eXtropia.com/
Re: [OT] excellent modperl/etoys article by Perrin revisited
Posted by Perrin Harkins <pe...@elem.com>.
> Perrin or others involved in the old eToys (or anyone in the new
Toys) --
> does anyone know if this is the same mod_perl technology you guys wrote?
I'm not involved in that anymore, so I don't have first-hand information.
However, a brief look at the site makes me think they are not using any of
what we wrote. The URL structures and query args (i.e. the public API of
the site) are all very different.
> I think it will make an interesting success story follow up if it is
> successful because it would also show how easy it was for the intellectual
> property written in mod_perl to be resold and reintegrated into another IT
> infrastructure which would make VCs happy (ie they would think more about
> being able to fund projects based on mod_perl if they know they could
> always resell the IP).
You have to remember that what we wrote was a specific application, not a
generic store or application server. That code would only be useful if you
wanted a store that did everything (data model, navigation, order
processing) exactly the way we did. I very much doubt KB is that similar.
Also, the documentation was great for an in-house project but not enough for
a packaged commercial app. There was a basic shared knowledge assumed in
most of it about the business goals and environment.
Keep in mind that we wrote very little infrastructure code - no more than I
would expect a J2EE project this large to write. The infrastructure came
from CPAN, Apache, etc. and is known to be very portable.
I suspect that KB has a team who supports their site and they chose to use
the technologies they already have in place. People hate change, and
looking at a foreign codebase, possibly in a language you don't know, is
daunting. It would be the same thing if someone walked into an ASP shop
with a bundle of WebLogic code and said "make it run, and work with our
legacy systems, with these changes, by Christmas. And don't stop supporting
our regular site. Oh, and we didn't hire any of the developers who wrote it
or the business people who told them what to write, so you'll just have to
read the source if you have questions that aren't in the documentation."
Doesn't sound that appealing, does it?
- Perrin
Re: [OT] excellent modperl/etoys article by Perrin revisited
Posted by Drew Taylor <dr...@drewtaylor.com>.
At 12:26 PM 10/25/2001 +0800, Gunther Birznieks wrote:
>I saw an article in today's ComputerWorld that indicates the technology et
>al for eToys was bought by another toy firm (KB) and they plan to put it
>up to sell toys for this holiday season again.
>
>http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO65008,00.html
>
>Perrin or others involved in the old eToys (or anyone in the new
>eToys) -- does anyone know if this is the same mod_perl technology you
>guys wrote?
Well, I'm just talking off the top of my head, but my interpretation is
that "the Web site relies on eToys software purchased at the bankruptcy
auction and on KB Toys' existing IT infrastructure" means that it's the
software Perrin et al. wrote, running on KB's hardware. I can't imagine
that to mean that they rewrote the software. If so, that just validates the
decisions the eToys design team made.
Even more kudos Perrin! :-)
Drew Taylor JA[P|m_p|SQL]H
http://www.drewtaylor.com/ Just Another Perl|mod_perl|SQL Hacker
mailto:drew@drewtaylor.com *** God bless America! ***
ICQ: 135298242
Re: [OT] excellent modperl/etoys article by Perrin revisited
Posted by Emad Fanous <Em...@citysearch.com>.
Tom Servo wrote:
>
> I was told over the weekend by one of my old eToys cow-orkers that the
> current incarnation of www.etoys.com isn't running our old code. Leave
> it to KB to buy all the code then not bother to use it.
>
> I understand that's also the reason they couldn't be bothered to migrate
> the old accounts over.
www.etoys.com looks extremely similar to www.kbtoys.com.
Whoever is interested, it looks like they are using unix on
apache:
Server: Apache/1.3.20 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.8.4 OpenSSL/0.9.6b
Thanks
Emad
>
> ------------
> Brian Nilsen
> tomservo@cnw.com
>
> On Thu, 25 Oct 2001, Gunther Birznieks wrote:
>
> > I saw an article in today's ComputerWorld that indicates the technology et
> > al for eToys was bought by another toy firm (KB) and they plan to put it up
> > to sell toys for this holiday season again.
> >
> > http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO65008,00.html
> >
> > Perrin or others involved in the old eToys (or anyone in the new eToys) --
> > does anyone know if this is the same mod_perl technology you guys wrote?
> >
> > I think it will make an interesting success story follow up if it is
> > successful because it would also show how easy it was for the intellectual
> > property written in mod_perl to be resold and reintegrated into another IT
> > infrastructure which would make VCs happy (ie they would think more about
> > being able to fund projects based on mod_perl if they know they could
> > always resell the IP).
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Gunther
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Gunther Birznieks (gunther.birznieks@eXtropia.com)
> > eXtropia - The Open Web Technology Company
> > http://www.eXtropia.com/
> >
> >
Re: [OT] excellent modperl/etoys article by Perrin revisited
Posted by Tom Servo <to...@cnw.com>.
I was told over the weekend by one of my old eToys cow-orkers that the
current incarnation of www.etoys.com isn't running our old code. Leave
it to KB to buy all the code then not bother to use it.
I understand that's also the reason they couldn't be bothered to migrate
the old accounts over.
------------
Brian Nilsen
tomservo@cnw.com
On Thu, 25 Oct 2001, Gunther Birznieks wrote:
> I saw an article in today's ComputerWorld that indicates the technology et
> al for eToys was bought by another toy firm (KB) and they plan to put it up
> to sell toys for this holiday season again.
>
> http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO65008,00.html
>
> Perrin or others involved in the old eToys (or anyone in the new eToys) --
> does anyone know if this is the same mod_perl technology you guys wrote?
>
> I think it will make an interesting success story follow up if it is
> successful because it would also show how easy it was for the intellectual
> property written in mod_perl to be resold and reintegrated into another IT
> infrastructure which would make VCs happy (ie they would think more about
> being able to fund projects based on mod_perl if they know they could
> always resell the IP).
>
> Thanks,
> Gunther
>
> __________________________________________________
> Gunther Birznieks (gunther.birznieks@eXtropia.com)
> eXtropia - The Open Web Technology Company
> http://www.eXtropia.com/
>
>