Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Microsoft patent
Author: Gary Robinson Posted: 6/30/2000; 5:50:43 AM Topic: Microsoft patent Msg #: 18290 Prev/Next: 18289 / 18291
The patent Dave pointed to yesterday is a bit scary.I'm looking at the first claim. I don't think it represents a patent on CGI's in general. The langage is too specific. It seems to refer to a case in which a true object-oriented programming system is used, and the URL points to a class; an instance of the class is instantiated, a method is executed. State information is sent back to the client and used in the next call to the server.
From my reading about Zope, which is an OO Python framework, I think this MAY be exactly what Zope does when it uses cookies for persistent sessions. I haven't used Zope though.
Anybody know if this is correct?
I'd be surprised if some Java frameworks didn't do the same thing. For instance, an obvious way to represent a Web page in an OO system is to make a class for it. Then, bringing a Web page up is instantiating a class instance; a particular method (function) is called depending on user input; etc.
It's just a very obvious and convenient way to do things if you're building an OO system. If that's worthy of a patent, any randomly-chosen line of code in any program is equally worthy.
As I've mentioned before, I'm not against software patents in general; just ludicrous ones, particularly when they're in the hands of companies that have the means and the will to not play fair.
This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:55:33 PM.
© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.