This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz
by James Robertson.
Original Post: Modality and Magic Realism
Feed Title: Avi Bryant
Feed URL: http://smallthought.com/avi/?feed=rss2
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There has been some good criticism of my suggestion that we use the term "modal" to talk about continuation-based web development. Brent Vukmer and Patrick Logan had similar takes: I still like "continuation based" better, Brent writes in a comment. It sounds mysterious, different and cool. And Patrick writes: The name just loses some of its sex appeal. Maybe it loses some of its mystery, though he then continues: and maybe that's a good thing. I have the same problem: on the one hand, I frankly kinda like that "continuation-based" sounds so technical and outlandish, because it's an outlandish concept, darn it, and if people don't know what a continuation is, well, maybe they should go find out. On the other hand, as Chris points out, "continuation-based" is a mouthful to say all the time when selling products, and it's equally difficult to explain to most technical audiences. If we want to make this idea accessible to a wider audience - if we want to market it - do we have to cut back on the technical elitism?
That goal isn't a given anyway; accessibility is a double edged sword. Here's Patrick again:
For the sake of the technique in web server implementation, the value of "modal" is to point out even less expressive languages can be used.
My biggest concern with reducing the "mystery" of the terminology in this way is that the concepts will get diluted by these less expressive implementations when they turn out to be much more restrictive than those we have today ("Modal web development? Yeah, I tried that with Struts and it was no big deal"). Alan Kay comes to mind: I invented the term Object-Oriented, and
I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind. The best way to prevent that is to use a term that's concrete enough to leave no such wriggle room, and "modal" definitely doesn't qualify.
So I'm glad to have started this discussion, but it's clearly just the beginning: I don't think "modal" is going to be the last word. If we still want to find an alternative to "continuation-based", here are a couple of quotes from the comments on my original post to consider:
"If anything, by enabling the BACK button Seaside comes closer to Modeless interaction in that you can be partially along multiple paths at any time."
"...the main advantage of continuation based web frameworks ... is that when I code something using Seaside it is 'Just Smalltalk'."
The thing I find interesting about these two quotes is that the first is looking at it from the user's point of view, where you can have complex forking paths through the session, whereas the second is from the developer's point of view: you just write straightforward, single-path Smalltalk code and don't worry about browser windows or back buttons or anything else. The key, of course, is that these are both true at the same time. The purpose of continuations is to provide the mapping from the non-linear reality of the user to the linearity perceived by the developer. What we need to do is find a word that captures the magic of enabling these simultaneous but conflicting points of view. That sense of alternate universes is why I've always personally associated the concept with magic-realist author Jorge Luis Borges, but I don't think we can get away with calling these frameworks "Borgesian"...
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