I am intereshted in running an Open-Source code software program on my Web-Site.

The program is TuxMathScrabble available at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tuxmathscrabble/

I am interested in having the program modified allowing for multiple
player gaming and other modifications.

My present question relates to setting up this program and any other
Python potential programs on my Web-Site.

http://solutionsolving.com/ss/
"Activities"

My server uses "Free BSD"

The program was written in Python. I would assume that I would have
any of three options of running the program on my Web-Site:

1. Converting the entire program to Java,
2. Using some sort of "patch" connecting the Python code to Java. I
saw something like this at the open source site,
3. Allowing the program to run in Python and have Python on my Web-Server.

Are any or all of these options feasible, which is simplest and are
there any other options?

I am interested in a step by step approach to having the program run
on my web-site if that is feasible for the first stage. Including
what, how & where to upload; and any other relevant information. This
part is not theoretical, I will expect the program to run properly for
a complete answer.

If you have any comments concerning Pythonas well, please include them.

---

Request for Question Clarification by joseleon-ga on 01 Apr 2004 22:57 PST

Hello, mdf:
  Thanks for counting on me for this question, but I won't be able to
help you with this one. I suggest you to cancel it and post a new one
without being targeted to me.

Regards.

---

Clarification of Question by mdf-ga on 03 Apr 2004 09:40 PST

To all researchers. I am opening this question to any capable
researcher who can answer it.

Hi MDF - As a Python enthusiast I couldn't resist dropping in on this one ...

If you're interested in pursuing your option 3 you might find ...

http://www.python.org/topics/web/

... useful. In particular (given that your webserver uses Apache) ...

http://www.modpython.org/

... provides a mechanism to map URL's (for instance
http://solutionsolving.com/mathsscrabble.html) to Python code which is
residing on the webserver.

To make use of all that you need to install the Python interpreter on
the server (98% true - I'll get to the other 2% in a minute) and if
the server is a shared server that might raise some issues - if it's
your own server or a 'virtual server' then it isn't a problem (in
particular as the FreeBSD ports system make installation very
straightforward).

The "other 2%" is a mechanism, XML-RPC, which would allow PHP scripts
(which your server supports) to access information generated by Python
code running on a different server. This would enable you to set up
the Python code at a hoster which is "Python aware" and then the PHP
scripts on solutionsolving.com would be able to (sort of) ask the
other server for what they should do in any given circumstance.

Of course none of this allows for the current means of output from the
Scrabble Program being mapped into HTML etc. I haven't looked at the
code myself but I suspect it's got a GUI frontend and so rework would
be required in that area (although nothing like the rework required is
you were to port it to Java).

Hope this helps - regards - richard shea.

Thanks for the comment. It will take me some time to work through your
links. I was looking for someone to walk me through the process.

Apparently I can't become a research so I can't collect money for this
question which is a pitty as there seems to be a lack of python
expertese.
So here is my 5min 2c worth.

Converting a game to an online version has two parts. One is running
the UI on a browser, the other is splicing in a server to handle the
multiplayer interaction.

The game you mentioned is made using pygame, a popular python library
for making games, which in turn used SDL for displaying its UI. This
won't run natively from a browser. Things that run natively in a
browser (without a plugin) are java applets, activex or flash. So the
best bet might be an implementation of SDL on Jython which is a python
interpreter for java. That way a pygame game could run as a java
applet. As far as I know such a thing doesn't exist. Here is an
interesting thread about the subject however

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2002-November/129127.html

The server side you'd probably use twisted a well made server library.
You could use something like Zope but that is asynchronous so each
client would be polling to get its new information which isn't
probably ideal.

I have found the ideal solution. I have had the game converted to
Flash. Take a look and enjoy
http://solutionsolving.com/ss/MathScrabble/tuxgame.php.

Very nice! I like the game concept as well as its Flash
implementation. Whoever did the coding or the conversion seems to know
his stuff.

leapinglizard