Flutterby™! : All software sucks! 2004-08-19 18:40:26.299743+00

All software sucks!

2004-08-19 18:40:26.299743+00 by Dan Lyke 10 comments

Aaagh. So I've got this photo browser app that's prototyped in Perl, but I'd really like to have a few users eventually and I need to buff up on my C++ skills, so I figured I'd rewrite it in C++. I'm using Glade as the interface builder, and I love that in conjunction with Gtk compared to Windows .NET's Forms class library because there's a lot of stuff, especially concerned with window resizing and position management, that it just does right.

But I tried to use someof the newer widgets and I'm now in this horrendous class library dependency issue with the code generator and... well.. Are people developing Gtk apps in C++ with Glade? It's enough to make a lad say "screw this" and go boot up Visual Studio .NET 2003, it is. And believe me, to voluntarily assume that much pain is... well...

All software sucks.

If it's a web app, take a quick look at PHP. I need to rewrite a version of my perl album.cgi in PHP for better integration with some customers web sites.

#Comment Re: gallery made: 2004-08-21 04:59:31.192474+00 by: Mark A. Hershberger

I looked at Gallery awhile back. I don't remember why I decided not to go with it, but if anyone feels like a discussion I'd love to hear some specific critiques.

I've been using it for a couple of months now at http://gallery.larrydburton.com and I like it's features so far. However, now I'm wondering what I missed as far as security goes.

It works a lot like the perl script Meuon wrote that I was using before. That's what I liked about it. It has a few other features for allowing multiple users to create albums and upload images. I suppose that's the part where the security problems are located. I'm not using that.

The problem is, it ain't my code. I'm not so much looking to re-write 'gallery' and such, as I am to have an album/blogging component that fits with a database driven website system I am working on.. and I absolutely abhor kludging other peoples apps to work together. It ain't close to done or pretty yet, but Test Site 1 and Test 2 are examples of what I am working on. Gallary is good, and I like you Desert Museum pics, but what happens when you write it yourself is you own it, can modify and make changes and it's philosophy and needs match your own.

Dan looks deeper into how a program does things than I do, and wants specific things to happen at a level I care less about.

#Comment Re: gallery security made: 2004-08-23 14:53:12.363709+00 by: Mark A. Hershberger

If you keep gallery up-to-date, it shouldn't be a problem. However, it has been plagued by insecurity. Mostly, the security problems give attackers access to your system as the user running gallery, but they can springboard from there.

Also, if you have PHP set up to minimize security problems, you should have less of an issue (of course, some of those things you can do with php make gallery un-usable).

#Comment Re: made: 2004-08-23 16:56:06.497752+00 by: meuon [edit history]

Well.. I decided to put my money where my mouth is, and it was on my todo list anyway, so this morning (from 8:30am until 12:30pm - approx 4 hours) I recreated the front end of my perl album cgi in PHP. I have not done the 'admin' mode yet, but I will soon. Example links: Album Browsing and A pic with EXIM data displayed and some pics with text. Is it a real langauge? I don't care, PHP rocks for basic webdev stuff!

Looking good meuon. I'd be interested in using the album script if/when you're ready to share it.

As for Gallery, I see that it requires safe mode be disabled. This requirements page may be one of the reasons I passed on it. The server I'd be putting this on is pretty locked down and I don't have the kind of access necessary to do this kind of configuration.