[Pipet Devel] an interesting thought

[J.W. Bizzaro]

"Lapointe, David" wrote:
> 
> This has been puzzling me for a while. What with the emphasis
> toward using Python as a base language for Loci, what about Grail as a
> browser/GUI ? I haven't tried this but apparently python scripts can be
> downloaded and client side executed.

An excellent point!  I have seen Grail before, and looking at it again, it does
do what I was talking about.  It would be a good excercise for everyone to
download it:

    http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/grail/source/

Grail is able to run Python-Tk scripts in the browser window.  Check out these
demos:

    http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/grail/demo/

Yes, Grail is 100% Python (with Tk) and a good model for Loci, with a couple
exceptions...

    (1) It uses Tkinter rather than GTK.
    (2) It is not GNU LGPL or GPL (but it is free and open source).

> <diatribe issue="What about security?"/>

Yes, this brings up the old Trojan Horse issue.  Grail seems to use the standard
"sandbox", and can be a model for Loci in security too.  But they're not
altogether certain about security either:

    http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/grail/info/security.html

> 
> Also, at the BAMBCT meeting Thursday, I brought up the issue of using Linux
> to do Computational Biology. Lance thought a June meeting Show 'n Tell would
> be interesting. There are *many* scientists who are using Linux scattered
> around the Boston area.
> 
So, maybe I can show Loci if anything works by then ;-)

But of course Loci will be made to run on all flavors of UNIX, if we can help
it.


Jeff
-- 
J.W. Bizzaro                  mailto:bizzaro at bc.edu
Boston College Chemistry      http://www.uml.edu/Dept/Chem/Bizzaro/

Studies show that 93% of all people are below average.
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