Scoring Engine Update

January 29th, 2007 1 Comment »

Just a small comment tonight on the state of web frameworks in Python.  I’m starting to think that the language and the philosophy of Python doesn’t lend itself to web frameworks like RoR.  The idea of explicit over implicit runs strongly against the idea of giving you anything pre-made.  I think the solution is something in between implicit and explicit.  How to define this is beyond me, but I’m excited to see someone pull it off.

The solution needs to be implicit by default but allow and make easy explicit.  RoR is all about convention over configuration, implicit over explicit.  I find this to be restricting, as do others.  There has to be something middle-of-the-road, or something that takes advantage of the best of both camps.

Fun With Scoring Engines

January 22nd, 2007 1 Comment »

Ok, so I’ve been developing an application for the past few months with one of my old instructors, Mike Masino. The application is called ScorchedPy and can be found here. It’s a scoring engine for a network security competition. What is a network security competition, you ask? Well, it’s a competition where teams from different schools fight to defend their networks against hackers (aka Red Team) in a controlled environment. You have to score the teams somehow, and the previous solution left much to be desired. So, we stepped in to fill that gap. The application is in two parts, one that does the actual testing of network services and the other acts as a front-end. Both sections are written in python using the following technologies/libraries:

  • Turbogears - A web framework for python
  • Amara - An XML library
  • SQLObject
  • SQLAlchemy
  • MySQL
  • Various network service libraries
  • Subversion for source code management
  • Trac for wikiliciousness and changesets
  • And VMWare for deploying at the moment

We attempted as much as possible to follow a MVC design and so far it is working well. I just finished the generation of scores and the rest is being tidied up. Check it out and let me know what ya think. Warning: If you ask for an installer we will laugh at you. Seriously, we will. A VM should be available for download soon.