Re: [Gnumed-devel] test web app to try out

[Tim Churches]

catmat wrote:

> Tim Churches wrote:
>
> > catmat wrote:
> >
> > > Demographics functions:
> > >
> > > > - new identity
> > > > - find identity
> > > > - edit identity
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > thanks for the testers. I found a bug where jean-luc picard was 
> > > there 5 times,
> > > and his name and identity wasn't in the database, but was still 
> > > turning up in the
> > > search.  Must be a cache somewhere I forgot about.
> > > It disappears once I restarted catalina and reloaded the webapp.
> >
> >
> >
> > That was me - I was deliberatley abusing the browser "back" button to 
> > replay previous inputs. Detecting and handling such use of the 
> > navigation buttons is the hardest aspect of building riobust Web apps.
> >
> > Tim C
>
>
> another role for febrl deduplication , er?

Not really. Febrl is good for subtle duplicates, but Web apps also need 
to check for replayed browser state and decide what to do if they 
encounter a previous state. In this respect they are fundamentally 
different from GUI apps, because (at least in stateful Web apps such as 
any Web app which updates a database) the user can cause the state shown 
in the browser to get out of sync with the state of the app logic just 
by hitting the back button a few times. One technique is to serialise 
all transactions with the app within a session by giving every 
interaction a unique number, and then checking for replays of previously 
issued numbers. Teh probelm then is what to do if you encounter a 
replayed number. Do you tell the user to stop using teh browser back 
button (they hate to be told that, and it doesn't work anyway), or do 
you just process the replayed input on teh assumption that teh user 
understnds what they are doing  (and possibly clobber lots of subsequent 
updates they made), or what. No right or even good answers. I hate 
building Web  apps...

Tim C