Comment about Seaside Web Framework
Saturday, November 8, 2003
There's been a thread going on comp.lang.lisp titled Scheme vs Lisp! [was Re: web application framework] that has been questioning the value of a continuation-based approach to web application development. Interestingly, at the same time (on a different planet :-) ), Avi Bryant mentions an enthusiastic comment by a user who has been praising his continuation-based Seaside web-server:
"However, the basic thrust of the comment, that Seaside allows a return to the simplicity of PRINT and READ programming, I think is dead on. The key thing to realize here is that the web *is* this simple. It's a modal, linear interface (except with the nice ability to fork the linear path at any point by using the browser back button or opening multiple windows at a time). It's just that people haven't yet had the tools to capture that simplicity, and so have been stuck with the artificial complexity of the event-driven request handler model. This gets back to my Ptth! posting: most web development is like using a version of BASIC where every call to READ has to be immediately followed by a call to GOTO. Pretty hard to string a coherent program together that way, nu?"Avi doesn't post very frequently, but when he does post something, it's often very quotable!
