[Haskell-cafe] RFC: A standardized interface between web servers and applications or frameworks (ala WSGI)

[Johan Tibell]

Good day hackers,

The Python community have been successful in standardizing an
interface between web server and applications or frameworks resulting
in users having more control over their web stack by being able to
pick frameworks independently from web servers, and vice versa. I
propose we try to do the same for Haskell. I've written half a draft
for a Haskell version of Python's PEP 333 [1]. If you're interested in
taking part in this effort please read through the Python spec first
(as it is way more complete and you can understand this proposal
better by reading it, I've skipped some important issues in my first
draft) and then go read the Haskell spec [2]. I'm particularly
interesting in feedback regarding:

* Doing in this way won't work as it violates HTTP/CGI spec part X, Y
and Z (the Python spec takes lots of things from the CGI spec
including naming and semantics).
* My server/framework could never provide/be run under this interface.
* This interface has bad performance by design.
* Using a different set of data types would work better.

The spec needs to be extended to cover all the corners of HTTP. Some
parts need to be motivated better. It is easier for me to motivate
things if people would tell me what parts are badly motivated.

Note: I'm open to a complete rewrite if needed. I'm not wedded to the
current design and/or wording. In fact parts of the wording is
borrowed from the Python spec. The parts with bad grammar are all
mine.

1. http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0333/
2. http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/WebApplicationInterface

-- Johan