[web-devel] Re: ANN: Salvia-1.0.0

[John Melesky]

On Mar 22, 2010, at 7:59 AM, Sebastiaan Visser wrote:
>> Am I right, that it uses its own protocol, i.e. no WAI?
>
> To answer your question: yes, Salvia uses its own protocol. Athough  
> the term `protocol' might mean different things when looked at from  
> different perspectives.
>
> How do I put this delicately? I do not think WAI is the way to go.
...
> First of all, no one will ever agree on this type of interface. Not  
> on the level of abstraction, not on the actual naming of the  
> datatypes, not on the amount of documentation, not on the placement  
> of the parenthesis.


I don't entirely agree. The python community, for example, eventually  
standardized on WSGI for exactly that role (standard interface between  
webserver and webapp or framework).

The difference, of course, is that Python had a decade-long history of  
dozens and dozens of different web app frameworks. There were a  
handful of different possible targets, though: mod_python, cgi,  
fastcgi, scgi, bespoke stuff. If you implemented one, you'd get  
constant feature requests for others. Eventually WSGI happened, and  
it's all been a good deal calmer since.

It's very much in the haskell way of thinking to try and learn from  
other languages' problems. WAI, though, seems to be addressing a  
community problem instead of a language problem. In other words, i  
think it's a fine idea, but it won't be widely used until the haskell  
community actually goes through the sort of pain and suffering that  
forged the resolve to use WSGI in python. We have to learn that lesson  
the hard way.

That's my take on it, anyhow, having watched the WSGI process firsthand.

-john