RE: webfacing and competing products

Trevor,

Screen-scrapers

To integrate with host applications from non-standard client systems,
developers commonly use text -
filtering systems that process the screen-by-screen results of terminal
interaction. These systems are 
generally called screen-scrapers because they have to extract meaningful
data from a screen's worth of 
undifferentiated information an inefficient method at best.
Screen-scraper interfaces are some of the least 
robust interfaces possible because of the many assumptions that have to
be made when determining what 
data from each screen is important. Very little can be done to catch
errors or provide for unusual 
situations with a screen-scraper because the interface definition is so
arbitrary. If the third through fifth 
characters of the second line of the fourth screen are used to indicate
the three-digit product code of a 
widget, for instance, the entire interface could be thrown off by having
four-digit product codes come into 
use after the interface is developed. Processing application data post
client receipt on-the-glass is too 
little too late. The light weight screen-scraper approach does not allow
server based transformation where 
application interfaces and system data are current, available and known.

Familiar? Pigs cannot as far as I know fly, new lipstick look or no!

Inventing one's own lexicon does not alter reality!

Bob Moore

Arterial Software
4 Waltham Street,
Richmond, VIC 3121
Australia
http://www.arterialsoftware.com