[LRUG] Continuations

[Piers Cawley]

"Alex Pounds" <alex at alexpounds.com> writes:

> On Thu, March 15, 2007 1:27 pm, Piers Cawley wrote:
>> benjohn at fysh.org writes:
>>> I've also heard of continuation based web servers. Perhaps these could
>>> be a good way of explaining continuations too?
>>
>> The trouble with using a continuation based webserver (say) as your
>> point of entry to explaining how continuations work is that, if you
>> get the implementation right, you never actually see the continuations
>> when you're writing your webapp; you just see (probably) a new control
>> structure (actually, what you tend to see is a *lack* of a control
>> structure because the continuations take care of it in the background
>> and you don't have to write all that explicit control logic).
>
> Beware! Continuation-based web servers considered harmful:
> http://www.interact-sw.co.uk/iangblog/2006/05/21/webcontinuations

Pretty much everything he's complaining of is dealt with neatly in
Seaside, and probably in the lisp based web continuation frameworks
too. It's not rocket science[1], it's probably more along the lines of
genetic engineering, but the problems are mostly solved.

1. Rocket science: Fill a tube with explosive. Seal one end. Light the
   other and stand well back. Easy. Everything else is details.

-- 
Piers Cawley <pdcawley at bofh.org.uk>
http://www.bofh.org.uk/