[plt-scheme] web programming, continuation, CPS transform, etc.

On Apr 30, 2007, at 6:19 PM, Yin-So Chen wrote:

> Hi Matthias - thanks for the reply ;)
>
> > 4) Is PLT web server moving toward the paper's findings?  If not,
> > why not?
>
>
> Partly due to manpower. See above. To some extent, we really need to
> design a full-fledged web language based on Scheme that makes good
> use of continuations.
>
> I am not sure if I follow... Are you saying that the direction of  
> PLT web server focus only on continuation?  By that I mean that I  
> infer that CPS/ANF is outside of the research scope w.r.t to PLT  
> web server.

As far as we are concerned, the exploration of continuation in the  
context of interactive web programming was our primary motivation to  
do research in this area.

We have done other things for the web server, but I wouldn't consider  
them 'research.'

CPS and ANF are general topics, only coincidentally related to the  
web server.



>
> At the same time, AJAX has relieved the need for many uses of
> continuations. So perhaps this research has explored as much as
> possible and will need to be resumed when the dust has settled on the
> (limittations of) AJAX.
>
> (just my 2 cents) From a practitioner perspective, AJAX does  
> provide some simplifications in web development, but also  
> complicates the structure of the code especially in situations  
> where one needs to handle both ajax and non-ajax capable browsers  
> (while few desktop client suffer from this issue today - more  
> mobile clients are on the rise).  Code duplication is huge in such  
> cases and I am still searching for a good abstraction... ;)
>

Good topics for research. Keep pushing -- Matthias