When Is Software Engineering – Hitting the Interwebs

So far, I’ve tamed an OS API that gives me the list of services running on my machine. I’ve been able to slap an iterator on it so that I could more easily deal with the information within my scripting language. Surely this is engineering?

My daughter, who knows Python, is not impressed. Next step, surely if I can make this information readily available through a web interface, it will be “Engineering”…

local WebApp = require("WebApp")

local HttpRequest = require "HttpRequest"
local HttpResponse = require "HttpResponse"
local URL = require("url");
local StaticService = require("StaticService");
local SCManager = require("SCManager");
local JSON = require("dkjson");

local HandleSingleRequest = function(stream, pendingqueue)
  local request, err  = HttpRequest.Parse(stream);

  if not request then
    print("HandleSingleRequest, Dump stream: ", err)
    return
  end

  local urlparts = URL.parse(request.Resource)

  if urlparts.path == "/system/services" then
    local mgr, err = SCManager();
    local res = {}

    for service in mgr:services() do
      if service.Status.State == "RUNNING" then
        table.insert(res, service);
      end
    end

    local jsonstr = JSON.encode(res, {indent=true});

    local response = HttpResponse.Open(stream)
    response:writeHead("200")
    response:writeEnd(jsonstr);
  else
    local filename = './wwwroot'..urlparts.path;
    local response = HttpResponse.Open(stream);
    StaticService.SendFile(filename, response)
  end

  -- recycle the stream in case a new request comes
  -- in on it.
  return pendingqueue:Enqueue(stream)
end

Runtime = WebApp({port = 8080, backlog=100})
Runtime:Run(HandleSingleRequest);

Surely this is engineering!! The business end of this code is right there with the familiar mgr:services() iterator. In this case, I take each of the records returned and stuff them into a table. Then, after all are returned, I turn that into a JSON string, and return it as the web result.

I only want to return the services that are in a “RUNNING” state, so I do that check before I actually stuff the record into the table. Well, there you have it. I’ve now gone from simply being able to make a simple system call, to being able to display the results of that call in a webpage accessible on my machine.  Is this “Software Engineering” yet?

Does it become engineering because I wrote the code that consumes a lower level framework?  Does it become engineering if I actually wrote the lower level framework?  Is it only engineering if I wrote the OS that supports that lower level framework?

As Doctor Evil would say; “Somebody throw me a frickin bone…”

I’ll try to impress my daughter with this code, then I’ll try it out on the cocktail circuit.  Perhaps someone will see this as software engineering…

But wait, there’s more!  That ‘query’ where I filtered for only the “RUNNING” services looked a bit enemic, and what about changing the state of those services?  Surely there’s room to do some engineering in there…

 

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