On Mon, 10 Jan 2011, Mizter T wrote:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/Heathrow-wifi

(What kind of absurd web server or CMS do BAA use - the URLs are just
ridiculous,

According to the headers, the server per se is Apache, but it's a
front-end to something running on a Java application server. They've got
an Arrowpoint load-balancer.

A look at the page source confirms that it's Java - there are URLs
pointing to JSPs - and indicates that they're using portlets, but don't
know how to set up tag libraries properly. The URL fragments suggest it's
a Model 2 architecture (lots of /controller/dispatcher.jsp all over the
place).

There are some elements in the URLs which are quite distinctive -
parameters called CiID and ChPath seem to crop up a lot. Googling for
those only finds BAA sites.

My verdict would be that it's largely homebrew - they got some consultants
in to build something for them, and they went bonkers and wrote it all
from scratch (with some portlets for flavour) instead of using an existing
web framework or CMS. This might be because it's a very old site; it might
just because the consultants were brain-damaged.

mind you Network Rail's system is just as 'URL cite unfriendly' too.)

I know. It's a modern plague. And, i have to say, a sign of a
badly-managed project - good URLs win you significant brownie points from
search engines, so a site with bad URLs indicates that someone senior was
asleep at the switch.

tom

--
All roads lead unto death row; who knows what's after?