[Zope] MIT CURL -- again

Casey Duncan cduncan@kaivo.com
Wed, 15 Aug 2001 08:47:29 -0600


Albert Boulanger wrote:
> 
> The MIT CURL page (with the non commercial curl)  is at
> 
> http://curl.lcs.mit.edu/curl/
> 
> Curl is intended to be a gentle slope system, accessible to content
> creators at all skill levels ranging from authors new to the web to
> experienced programmers. By using a simple, uniform language syntax and
> semantics, Curl avoids the discontinuities experienced by current web
> users who have to juggle HTML, JavaScript, Java, Perl, etc. to create
> today's exciting sites. Our hope is that the single environment provided
> by Curl will be an attractive alternative for web developers; we've
> certainly enjoyed using Curl to create this web site and others. A brief
> overview of Curl and its underlying philosophy can be found in an
> accompanying white paper.
> 
> http://curl.lcs.mit.edu/curl/wwwpaper.html
> 

This seems very interesting. It looks as though it could make tools like
Zope obsolete (did I say that?), at least from a dynamic content
stand-point, Zope'll always have content-management... If not, then it
at least makes HTML/Javascript (DHTML) look like complete crap. Not that
it looked that good to begin with... I have long thought that the
client-side is heavily under-utilized in the present web infrastructure,
Curl seems to address this nicely, with much more seemless client and
server scripting.

I think my concern lies with the "Curl Corporation," (Granted we all
cower before Zope Corporation 8^)) although from appearances, the
language standard seems to be public domain. It just smells like a
Java-like semi-open-but-not-really standard that will prompt some
eventual war with Microsoft (assuming it catches on), who will come out
with Qurl, which is 99% compatible with Curl plus "extensions". Then 5
years later will come out with Db (D flat), a language that looks
suspiciously like Curl, and force OEMs to ship it instead of the real
thing...
 
I'm such an optimisit, aren't I?

-- 
| Casey Duncan
| Kaivo, Inc.
| cduncan@kaivo.com
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