Towards a truly web oriented programming language

Introduction

The widespread adoption of the World Wide Web has fundamentally altered the landscape of software development. In the past ten years or so, the Web has become the de facto target environment for the majority of new software applications. In contrast, the programming paradigms and programming languages that we use today are still primarily web-agnostic. They were designed during an era when ubiquitous networking and globally available data and resources were still an unrealized dream.

In this project we propose an integrated, web-oriented programming language and associated infrastructure that will support truly web-oriented software development. In this environment, programs “live” on the web, they can consist of objects and code located anywhere in the world, and they can be modified on the fly without recompilation or “stopping the world”. In general, we intend to build an environment in which the mechanisms needed for web-oriented software development are an integrated, built-in feature, rather than an afterthought, a library feature, or a combination of hybrid technologies as in today’s systems.