README Instructions to Run Mishkall Webapp Do Not Work

[Othman Alikhan]

Environment

• Windows 11
• Ubuntu 18

Problem

To run Mishkal as a webapp, the official README suggests: python3 interfaces/web/mishkal-webserver. However, doing so results in the following error:

entropy@ubuntu:~/Downloads/mishkal$ python3 interfaces/web/mishkal-webserver.py 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "interfaces/web/mishkal-webserver.py", line 45, in <module>
    test();
  File "interfaces/web/mishkal-webserver.py", line 22, in test
    from paste import httpserver
  File "interfaces/web/./lib/paste/httpserver.py", line 156
    raise exc_info[0], exc_info[1], exc_info[2]

The issue seems is that the paste library that is included in the Mishkal Github repo contains Python 2 syntax.

Attempted Solutions

• I've downloaded the Python3 version of the paste library and swapped it with the one included in this repo. That allows the webserver to launch (no Python exceptions raised), however, when browsing to the URL http://127.0.0.1:8080, an infinite redirection occurs.
• Alternatively, I've modified the interfaces/web/mishkal-webserver.py code to use Flask instead of Paste, and that one works much better.
• I've tried python3 interfaces/web/mishkal_bottle.py and that one runs properly (after installing its dependencies.

Recommendation: The quickest solution for now is to update the README instructions to suggest running the mishkal_bottle.py file instead even though the bottle library is deprecated. Otherwise, the longer solution is debugging the bottle.py variation.