HTTP: The Assembly Language for the Web
2007-09-18
HTTP is great at what is was designed for. A simple way to request hyperlinked documents over a network. HTTP also provides a way to communicate extra bits of information that the HTTP server might need to relay the requested information. But HTTP is exceptionally bad for writing complex web applications. Web applications tend to maintain state, deal with complex user interaction, and are highly dynamic. URLs, request tokens, and directory hierarchies become meaningless to the user.
So why do most web application developers insist on dealing with them. I am not suggesting we scrap HTTP, there is to much technology that uses HTTP, but why not abstract HTTP from the developer and the user. In complex web applications “meaningful” URLs have no meaning. What does www.amazon.com/dp/1594201315/ref=s9_asin_image_1/002-5342499-8990415?… mean? I sure don’t have a clue and I do this for a living. Your average user has even less of a clue.
If web developers would drop the legacy dogma of dealing with HTTP directly they would be more productive, rewrite less, throw less away, and be freed from the shackles of the request response cycle.There are a couple of web frameworks that take a giant leap in the right direction. One is authored by this writer, Phaux, and it was largly inspired by another Seaside.
2007-09-19 at 03:44:23
Also check out Run BASIC which is designed to make web programming as easy as programming an old home computer in BASIC. http://www.runbasic.com
We are currently about to release an all-in-one Run BASIC server to make web development and serving pushbutton easy.
2007-09-19 at 04:50:19
I was taking a look at Phaux and didn’t seem to find any instructions. I’m aware of seaside and I’ve toyed with it before so I’m happy to see something similar come along for PHP…. so, are there any docs for it that I’m missing? Or did I just miss them in my excitement?
2007-09-19 at 05:01:47
No there is currently very little in the way of documentation. There are a number of examples included in the distribution. I would encourage you to download Phaux and join the development mailing list. Jump right in and provide some feedback.