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> And I'd still be bound to the IE automation model. Why? You fetch data, calculate stuff and give out reports. Unless there is heavy javascript involved, you
by PurpleRamen 8y ago
> And I'd still be bound to the IE automation model.
Why? You fetch data, calculate stuff and give out reports. Unless there is heavy javascript involved, you don't need a browser for any of this. But now you are dependent on the fragile setup you have created, hopping that VBScript, IE and your datasources will continue to work as long as you live.
Becoming independant and gaining a future ground would be a valid reason to change to a better environment. It doesn't need to be Python, but considering the requirements, Python is a very good choice for this it seems.
- A_Person 8y agoAll of the websites concerned have strict authorization requirements and none have public APIs afaics. At the start, it just seemed easiest to automatically scrape them. I guess I could have reverse engineer their private APIs and used those - but as the doctors say, the retrospectoscope is a rare and expensive piece of equipment!
- PurpleRamen 8y agoIs authorization done with some activeX-applet? Otherwise I don't really see what IE is offering that Chrome offers too, but scrapping-libs can't. BTW There are libs to use chrome programatically for those things. It's called headless-mode or chromeDriver. Similar things exist for other Browsers. So you could probably rewrite your app to become more indipendant without lossing the existing functionality.
- A_Person 8y agoI just don't see enough cost benefit from rewriting hundreds of thousands of lines of working code at this time. I can't see IE going away, any time soon, due to corporate tie-in. Hopefully VBScript ditto. If it all falls over down the track, I'll review my options then :-)