[web-devel] A separation of concerns

[Clint Moore]

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Chris Eidhof <chris at eidhof.nl> wrote:
> My point is: we should not try to build one big framework. Instead, I propose that we build a set of smaller libraries that each do one thing very well. Some of these libraries might be designed to work together.

I completely agree.  For our current project we chose Hack mainly
because of its simplicity and the fact that it imposes very little
requirements on the code around it which is more in keeping with many
of the reasons I love working with Haskell to begin with - flexibility
chief among them.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that any
one-stop web framework for Haskell would have to be comprised of may
separate libraries that function well on their own first, and then
happen to form a cohesive whole to create a more monolithic, if only
in spirit, one size fits all framework.  Happstack does this to a
certain extent but I think there's a lot of room for improvement.

> I personally think MVC is a perfect fit for the web: model code handles data storage, view code handles HTML/JSON/XML and the controller coordinates between these. Instead of building packages that do all of these things, I would like to see model packages, view packages and controller packages. That way we can achieve maximum reusability and a good separation of concerns.

Absolutely.