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RE: Y Store /Closures
> Avi: You've gone from "cannot be done" to "cannot be done in as many
> lines of code". I won't take that bait, Sorry. Because the lines of
> code you are focussed on reducing is not what I (and other enterprise
> developers are focused on -- supporting the back button in the manner
> you describe is less than 5% of my use-cases). Thanks. I'll conclude
> that thus far you seem to agree that in principle you can do w/out
> continuations, but perhaps *you* think that in languages w/out such
> support it might be verbose to implement "some" such traversals.
> Would that be a fair characterization?
Obviously languages that do not support closures and continuations can
be modified to incorporate them. I'm not sure what your point is --
many Lisps are written in C. So what? I don't think it's a valid
argument to say "Closures and continuations are nice, but since a
theoretical implementation of such is possible in Java I must not need
them." It would be like me saying that C is a perfectly acceptable
alternative for web development than Java, simply because Java's
features could be written in C.
It's like Mike's point a few days ago: One of Java's big features is
the vast library support. Well, all we are saying is that continuations
and closures represent an equally important feature, and that languages
that *have* these constructs are superior for building web applications
(and other things) to languages that lack them.
> Personally speaking, I agree -- but the important distinction to make
> is that customers are asking for more than just what the web
> environment provides. So, I really wonder how long
> this backtrackable-forkable HTML/HTTP driven interface period will
> last (already I have customers that are happier running a
> heavy rich-lient app fronted by the likes of Citrix :).
>
Now this I *can* agree with. The main benefit of the web paradigm that
I can see (from a customer standpoint) is that web applications do not
have to be replicated across client machines. So, for example, a large
financial institution running a web application can update the servers
to reflect new features, but the loan officers and tellers can show up
for work the next day with no down time.
C#/.NET does seem to support this facility in a thick client mode
using the included distribution tools, as I think Java does with the
"web start" functionality. It will be interesting to see how these
features evolve in the next few years.
Thanks,
-Brent