scott wrote:
>> Distrubuted MVC.
>>
>> VNC, X11, RPD, etc. work at the raster level, which is too low. HTML 
>> over HTTP doesn't support server push. If MVC could go over a network, 
>> all these problems would be eliminated. Apparently a tiny amount of 
>> prior art exists for this problem...
> 
> Well there you go, a good subject for a PhD...  Spend a couple of years 
> getting a good working demo of the system, do some testing with it, then 
> write a big report saying what you did, then say hello to Dr Invisible :-)

That's basically what I did - except I spent only 1 year doing it, and 
the final report was tiny, and the demo program was minimal. 
Fortunately, the people I had to demonstrate it to (yes, they actually 
made me do that. Cruel, heartless people they are...) were the guy who 
proposed the project, and some guy who didn't speak English. Every 
question he asked me, the other guy basically hinted to the point of 
*feeding* me the answer. Damn, I am so lucky I passed that thing...

It was written in Smalltalk, BTW. Because, well, Smalltalk already uses 
MVC. Just gotta make it distributed. This amounts to writing a proxy 
that takes change notifications and pipes them across the network 
somehow. I suspect UDP would have been a better idea than TCP, but I 
don't know how to do that. There's also the "minor detail" of sending 
interface descriptions, and setting up the link in general. I only 
really addressed the problem of making the system work once everything 
is configured.

There's also the minor detail that my system permits (or rather, "works 
by") arbitrary code execution. As in, when you move a slider, it sends 
the text "X=7.2" over the network. The machine at the other end parses 
the "X=" part, and then *executes* the rest of the string to obtain a 
result. This string can be an arbitrary Smalltalk expression. This makes 
it trivial to send user-defined datatypes across the network - and 
reformat somebody's harddrive. (Especially under Windoze 98...)

>> [Lots of Haskell-related stuff is funded by Micro$oft - for reasons I 
>> don't entirely comprehend yet...]
> 
> Because they're just a little bit interested in computer software?

Yes, but only poor-quality software. Why would they be interested in a 
language for writing bug-free software?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message