Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

re: Frontier - Integrating Windows and Unix

Author:Dan Peters
Posted:9/28/2000; 3:59:49 PM
Topic:re: Frontier - Integrating Windows and Unix
Msg #:21827
Prev/Next:21826 / 21828

it's good to see some press for Frontier every once and awhile . . .

In the recent edition of Integrating Windows and Unix newsletter (Sept. 28,2000) published by ITworld.com

[ INTEGRATING WINDOWS AND UNIX --- September 28, 2000 Published by ITworld.com, the IT problem-solving network http://www.itworld.com/newsletters ]

Frontier 6.0 One longtime advocate of playing well together is Dave Winer, creator of the Frontier scripting system and publisher of Scripting News, devoted to "News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community." Frontier, recently released at version 6.0, "is the first Content Management System that works like powerful systems for print publishing," explains its Web site.

Despite the sound of that marketing-speak, Frontier isn't just another Web publishing tool. First, it's a product with a strong character. Winer's touch is evident throughout Frontier. As he told us, there's an "incredible synergy we can achieve if we connect scripting environments of all flavors on all kinds of systems. I think Web sites are WANs [wide area networks], and the more we allow our communities to connect together at a technological level, the more effective we all will be."

He's also written that, "If you look at the competitive landscape in publishing software, you'll see that they're all built around scripting .. Customization is key, and where customization is important, scripting is central." It's evident both that the motivation for Frontier is far more an engineering than a financial one, and that Winer's engineering basis is the one we favor: scripting.

We don't often cover Frontier developments because the user interface doesn't run on Sun operating systems (only MS Windows and Mac OS). It's also different from the Perl, Python, Rexx, Tcl, etc., crowd: unlike their most recent incarnations, it feels like a scripting language for gluing together external pieces, with less emphasis on general-purpose development.

However, it's timely to note a few of version 6.0's features:

Like versions 1.0 through 5.0, there's a lot to like about Frontier's implementation. It's swift in operation and robustly built. Jorn Barger is a prolific Web author who gave us a few examples of what Frontier does for him:

The simplest, most useful thing is having any given page of my Web site just seconds away from touch-ups, instead of the ridiculous finder-overhead of the Mac OS. I've customized it to where I can specify "no tags markup" for italics, bold, etc., and when I hit Publish Page Frontier does all those conversions and uploads the finished HTML page.

It has a shared-menu functionality that (almost) effortlessly gave me the power to hit a Control key from within Netscape and have the relevant detail of whatever page I'm browsing be placed into my Web log page, either in the Headlines section or with a pullquote and More button.

If you work with Web applications, you owe yourself the opportunity to see how Frontier can benefit you.



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