A simple new web (HTTP, HTML, JS) replacement based on s-expressions and lisp. It would be useful for things like file hosting, wikipedia/wikis, BBSs, online newpapers/blogs, imageboards, youtube/mediagoblin style video sites.
Instead of XML we use s-exp for markup. It will be a very simple functional markup language that could be defined in a page or two. We will not allow it to grow and grow horribly like the W3C to the point that it's impossible to implement from scratch.
Instead of javascript we use a simple lisp language (similar to R5RS without continuations) which is interpreted with strict resource and permission bounds, so it will never do anything you do not allow it including swamping your computer down like current js JIT systems.
For servers, instead of tools similar to PHP we will use systems inspired by type-checking that are able to statically ensure that no vulnerabilities in the class of XSS/SQL injection/... exist.
1. A first draft design needs to be created.
2. It should be easy to get something up and running quite fast by writing a proxy that translates all this s-exp stuff into HTML - just for the purpose of prototyping.
3. Reference implementations from scratch - focus on low memory usage and stability (using safe languages instead of C or C++).
Good idea, I think there has been discussion about something similar on /prog/ about half a year ago. EME and the inherent insecurity of a browser that has essentially evolved into a big clusterfuck of an OS (see /prog/1399299127 for an example) might even give this more than five users, although I'm not expecting or even wanting mainstream adoption.
Lisp as a scripting language is a nice idea for efficiency, simplicity and sanity reasons alone, yet I think we shouldn't focus too much on replicating what already exists. A big problem with WEB 3.0 ROCKSTAR APPS is that they abuse protocols to do things they weren't designed to do. A similar thing, if not as bad as Javashit, goes for HTML. It has a fair share of crap like the redundancy in having both semantical and formatting tags. There is no need to repeat the errors of the past; you have the chance to fix something horrible, don't waste it like Google did with Dart.
A focus on simplicity seems desirable, Project Xanadu (as mentioned in the discussions several months prior to this thread) might be worth looking into as well.
Restrictions on the servers used don't seem relevant however: In the end, everything that can talk the protocol can act as a server. If people want PHP and node.js, there is nothing you can do about it except call them out on being utter retards. As a general guideline, I'll give it the credit it deserves though.
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Anonymous2014-05-15 14:15
Browsers allow unclosed tags and can handle many cases of broken HTML, which SEXPs wont allow.
It needs to be designed well first. This can be separated into parts which can be worked on by different groups:
* Layout and Presentation: Work out what layout primitives will be required for a wide range of presentations: How to layout different sorts of user input forms, how to display different types of threaded and tree based dialogues, how to display tabulated data, how to flow text around images, how to include media like images, equations, sound, video. * Layout Engines [depends on Layout and Presentation]: Produce implementations of the layout system. A simple proxy that turns sexp code into HTML might be a useful as a prototype initially. Real rendering engines should be carefully designed to minimize memory usage and put a limit on the CPU usage so that extremely complicated ASTs will be rejected rather DOSing the users browser/computer. * Scripting: Spec out the language as a simplification of R5RS. Work out what kind of API it will have access to and how permissions will be assigned to scripts. In a safe language implement an interpreter for it that carefully limits its resource usage. * Protocol: A replacement for HTTP/some kind of layer ontop of TCP is required for distributing and fetching pages. Decide how images and other media should be distributed, take inspiration from things that work nice and stable like bittorrent. * Security [linked with Protocol]: Work out how authentication, TLS and certificates should be integrated from the start: reject CAs in favor of something that gives users power like ssh style trust on first use or web of trust. * Servers: Study common security problems in the web, design a language with static analysis that makes compile time errors out of these problems when possible (as in injection/quotation problems). Make it safe and easy for people to create, operate and host their own sites. * Blind spots and Mistakes: Look for important things that haven't been considered and list them. Point out flaws and improvements. Look for things that work well and copy them.
Overall for coding and design: The highest priority is to make things as simple as possible, source code should be short and readable. Keep good documentation up to date that explains things like common use cases. it's important to use safe languages to avoid buffer overflows and other problems which can cause crashes and allow exploits.
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Anonymous2014-05-16 20:09
>>4 have more than one type of delimiters for the s-operations
This is a pretty big task. I propose that we form committees and subcommittees to debate each detail and a governing body to democratically accept or reject each proposal's entry into the reference white paper and implementation.
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Anonymous2014-05-16 21:26
>>9 both tcp and tls are not good for this job, we need sexpr replacements
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Anonymous2014-05-16 23:55
ONE WORD. THE FORCED FRAGMENTATION OF THE SEXPR. THREAD OVER.
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Anonymous2014-05-17 0:05
>>14 It amazes me how anyone thought this would think this is a good idea, and yet it is done over and over again.
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Anonymous2014-05-17 0:07
>>17 It thinks to amaze thought I would, thinking is done amazingly and over again thought.
>>24 That's why it shouldn't allow sloppy work in the first place. Even the sloppiest one will at least work on something until it works as intended, and if it doesn't work, nobody will depend on it.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 0:32
>>25 The web is smelly shit because of the people that built it.
>>26 The work is sloppy because the work is sloppy to begin with. Web coders mess up when serializing data. If the standard can't handle their errors, then the site is broken and it becomes your problem if you need to use it in some way. Just because a page is broken doesn't mean the page will be fixed. A perfect example was shiichan. Would you have boycotted old /prog/ until someone fixed the malformed html in a few of the posts there? That would be retarded. And wanting a specification that cripples the entire page when malformed expressions appear doesn't make any more sense.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 0:40
Web coders mess up when serializing data.
Look, people mess up too when they write programs. Does that mean the compiler should be forgiving and create what it thinks the user means? No, this isn't Javashit's anally prolapsed type system.
If the standard can't handle their errors, then the site is broken and it becomes your problem if you need to use it in some way.
Then make sure your Sexp page actually makes sense before uploading it to your server? It's not that hard.
Would you have boycotted old /prog/ until someone fixed the malformed html in a few of the posts there?
Wasn't that what some people made with the <> thing in the title?
You seem to be under the wrong assumption this newly proposed web is targeted to epic Ruby ninjas. Incompetent brogrammers aren't supposed to make things for the new Lispweb.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 1:00
>>28 There are posts on old /prog/ that contain non-nested tags, like <a><b></a></b>. See this is the thing, you never noticed this because your browser handled the error gracefully. Would you prefer a browser that says `parse error' and doesn't show any information in the page? Verification of static pages is trivial, but that doesn't mean there aren't static pages out there with malformed HTML. Dynamic pages are somewhat more understandable, but still, it's not like it's hard to balance tags.
Incompetent brogrammers aren't supposed to make things for the new Lispweb.
That's nice. I might need a thing or two provided by incompetent brogrammers though, so I'll keep using both webs.
There are posts on old /prog/ that contain non-nested tags
You're supposed to handle user input on the server side, which is easily doable by parsing the BBCode. and if there is a parse error return the raw user input with escaped characters.
If you fuck up a dynamically generated webpage as a developer, it's your fault and you shouldn't expect the anus-loose parsers to deal with your sloppiness.
>>29 No, because all </x> tags are replaced with closing parens.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 2:16
>>32 ``should'' isn't an appropriate word. There is only what is. old /prog/ existed and used the software, shiichan, written by shii. Shii missed a case of some kind in his bbcode parser and some posters learned how to exploit it to get unintended effects like nested quoting. Shii is long gone and the development of the board software is frozen. You have two choices.
1. Use a browser that gracefully handles malformed HTML and enjoy the website. 2. Use a browser that refuses to display the page and wait for shii someone to fix it.
In one of these cases you get to use a website, and in the other case, you don't get to use it. Which do you prefer?
>>33 See >>31. It's not the same as (a niggers literally (b tongue) my anus), which would be <a>niggers literally <b>tongue</b> my anus</a>.
>>34 Should is a word used by those who have the power to will the world into what they want it to be. You clearly do not possess such power and will.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 2:50
>>35 What are you going to do when you find a malformed expression in a webpage? Email the administrator and threaten to bomb their headquarters if they don't fix it within 5 working days? If the page displays properly on the common browsers nobody will give a fuck. The only way you would have the power to change this is if you compromised their servers and patched the source yourself. But given the web dev can't produce well formed HTML this is likely possible.
If there was some s-operations web which was by desing strict with erroneous operations in webpages code, and bypassing this in browsers was not trivial, so such capability was either imcomplete or missing in avalaible browsers, then wouldn't all webpages in this web not have erroneous operations?
>>35 No, english "should" often denotes rather some kind of morality. Should be, not shall.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 3:19
/prog/ challenge #388473872
Compromise all servers and all client machines. Replace all servers and clients with implementations conforming to the lisp based web. They'll thank us later.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 3:22
HTML is just a document markup language. Why do you all care about correctness so much? It isn't programming, and mistakes in the code are irrelevant as well as the page renders fine. Why are you trying to hold glorified typists up to the same standards as the guy who writes firmware for nuclear reactors? It is simply never going to happen. For all it's flaws, look at XHTML. Any browser that breaks on a missing tag is going to lose a user and wouldn't be around for long.
Please try to survey the reality of the situation, you hopeless autists.
>>37 Yes, Morality, Applied Power and Will to Annihilate All evil and amorality. You stupid atheist inferior. Us Superior Spirits Shall Should Shall as we Should Be.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 7:55
The example in >>29-34 is completely nonsensical. You are taking a problem in current HTML that wouldn't exist in a sexpr language, and because browsers couldn't handle this now non-existent error class (how are they supposed to? it's non-existent after all), it's bad or unsuited for the Real World™ because the brogramming crowd frequently makes this mistake?
Compromise all servers and all client machines using social engineering and bribes. Replace all servers and clients with implementations conforming to the DRM based web. They'll thank us later.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 8:49
>>45 It's not funny if it's actually happening ;_;
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Anonymous2014-05-18 10:04
one thing I would like in sexp would be to use \ (just like C) to escape characters than the thing that xml and lisp are using (example: (b \)niggers\\) would print )niggers\
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Anonymous2014-05-18 15:04
>>34 I don't understand why you're transforming a fatal flaw into a benefit for both user and ``coder''.
Why do you insist on this? If the web had been strict from the very beginning, we wouldn't have bad Shiitchans to begin with.
It's not a matter of making a turd and then expect the browser to sugarcoat your turd. Sure, the sloppy parsing is good for the current web, but we're proposing here a new web and you're mixing up the disadvantages of the old web with the advantages of the new web.
>>38 Realistically speaking, the current web has way too much momentum for this proposal to ever be accepted by the mainstream. If we want to make this a real thing, we ought to use it for our new hypothetical Scheme textboard, a /prog/ repository with a Lispweb interface, a SICP-themed roguelike in Scheme as a proof of concept for the Scheme ``web scripts'', and maybe throw a few extras.
We'll never be able to reboot the web, everyone is too busy jerking off to their social Javascript feminist coding apps.
We'll never be able to reboot the web, everyone is too busy jerking off to their social Javascript feminist coding apps.
we should make a hipster, feminist javascript/ruby/python/rust/something thing to compile to our scheme thing then. Hipsters will love it another thing would be to have a XSLT/javashit thing to compile our scheme thing to html at runtime or use a firefox extencion for this so normal people will be able to use schemeweb
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Anonymous2014-05-18 15:39
>>49 Why would we want normal people using the Lispweb? That's what the containment web is for.
>>39 So, if something isn't a programming language, it must be as shitty as it can be?
You're comparing a language that conforms to its own grammar to the firmware for a nuclear reactor. Your mediocrity is astounding. Are you also trying to say every novel written from now on is allowed have wrong grammar and spelling just to cater the people who didn't take English 101?
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Anonymous2014-05-18 18:23
>>56 Don't worry, some paranoid guy shitting out nonconformant HTML in notepad with unclosed capitalized tags for his geocities page about how painful the alien rape was isn't going to diminish the value of the next great program you're going to write just as soon as you stop mashing F5 at time wasting site like this one and watching child gymnastics videos on Youtube.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 18:35
>>47 Xarn-sama suggested using {} instead of () and allowing the escaping of characters in his Sexpcode implementation reference.
We already agreed on the sloppiness of the current web being a convenient thing for both users and shitty brogrammers. There's no reason to repeat this over again, though.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 18:59
>>58 A good suggestion, parens are way too common in generic text. Makes the markup more readable, too.
How minimalistic is this going to be? >>1—san mentioned scripting, but there is "send something to a BiSex API when the button is clicked"-scripting and "lets port Linux to Javashit"-scripting. This influences a fair share of other parts.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 19:21
>>59 No matter how hard you try, there does not exist and valid solution for preventing browsers from preventing this behavior. Besides that, there are valid reasons for accepting malformed code. For example, what if the connection drops when the page is 90% transferred. Would you rather the browser display what it has and make it look as good as possible, or display an error and show nothing else.
And again, it is only markup. It is not really all that important. Being annoyed by sloppiness there is like refusing to read a text file because the line breaks aren't consistent. Annoying, yes, but is only formatting. As for the sloppy behaviors that lead to implementation specific rendering, that is irrelevant too. If the presentation was so important, then it should have been made in TEX, or a PDF, or saved as a PNG image, which have rigid standards that are complex enough that fools won't even know how to start fucking it up.
>>61 If the connection dropped, you have to reload anyway because the page is incomplete.
IHBT
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Anonymous2014-05-18 19:53
>>34 When you write a program in lisp the parens in your code are balanced, otherwise you get a compile error.
When you program a web server/web site for this sexp based web (really need a short unique name to refer to it...) the page will be a quoted/quasiquoted sexp - so a server will never emit unbalanced data unless it crashes or something.
A page could also be constructed like data constructors in a language like haskell, making sure that even more structure about the page is correct at compile time (e.g. it could stop you putting a <title> outside <head>) but still let you put pages them together dynamically.
>>48 Yeah, no one can reboot the web - its beyond critical mass and it's stampeding in a direction that a few people don't want to get dragged along with. that said, we can definitely create something new which serves its own purpose well, cutting out a lot of awful things and learning from mistakes of the past.
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Anonymous2014-05-18 19:57
>>62 No that is not always necessary, you fucking idiot. Not everything is a AJAX RESTful webAPI dependent shit page like facebook or YouTube that has to have tons of shit to even load. Go back to /g/.
>>66-67 An obscure irc channel and a japanese site that hasn't been updated in years? We'd be fine. But if you don't like LispWeb how about LispNet? Or maybe SicpNet?AbelsonNet?
>>69 LINET does not only offer its customers top-quality beds, mattresses and other products, but also a number of related and additional services. They are designed so a customer can make the maximum use of the technological and functional potential of LINET products.
Customer support is prepared at any time to reply to any queries or help resolve any problem. And in addition to this, customers can choose from a wide range of innovative services, such as bed fleet optimisation, product operation training, education of non-doctor medical professionals in clinical practice and advice on equipping an interior in medical facilities.
If the presentation was so important, then it should have been made in TEX, or a PDF, or saved as a PNG image,
Presentation is important, and markup [b]is[/b] presentation. Yes, I'd rather not see anything at all than have a crappy web page made by a Javashit fanboy who can't be trusted with a keyboard because ``sloppiness is the way to go''.
Being annoyed by sloppiness there is like refusing to read a text file because the line breaks aren't consistent
Extraneous line breaks can be ignored safely (and can be annoying), badly closed tags and inconsistent markup cost you the modest price of writing a parser to deal with everyone's shit.
XML is shit, HTML is shit, you are sloppy shit. Fuck you, I hope you choke in a bag of badly formatted nigger dicks. You and your kind are the reason I need a goddamn parser to get two shitposts from /prog/ instead of being able to do it with sed without suffering from an anal aneurysm. All this shit I have to put up with because you all are lazy fucks. Seriously, fuck you.
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Lain2014-05-18 20:50
If Linet is taken, why not use The Wired?
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Anonymous2014-05-18 20:53
>>75 what would the benefit of naming this after a childrens cartoon be?
I was thinking about layout, you could try have primitives for splitting the current frame into parts proportional, fixed size or some kind of springyness that gets its size from the content.
Not sure how but you also need to be able to put paragraphs of text, fixed width text and headings in. Any ideas on this? It might work okay if you could just put each media element (a paragraph of text, a button, an image, a grid/table of data, whatever) on a newline.
There should also be a tree based layout ul/li which would let you do bulleted lists as well as threaded conversations (reddit/hacker news style).
>>105 We followed this rule while world4ch was still alive. There is a difference between ``LUA > C LMAOOOO XDDDD'' and ``LE LE >MUH /G/ BACK TO LE LE LE LE E/G/IN >2014 LMAO XDDDDDDDD''.
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Anonymous2014-05-23 19:44
>>58 Link at the bottom in case anybody forgot, but mostly because I just noticed the markup system I thought up over the last few days was essentially this one and I don't want anyone else to waste their time just because they didn't have their old /prog/ stuff sorted.
On a different note, how does the layouter know which text segments belong together? One obvious way is to tag sections in the original source and act on those in the layout, but that would basically recreate HTML, complete with its <div> madness you can see in just about any site. I propose the following: Sections that are to be layouted differently are put into different units, like files. Layout would still be pretty straightforward: After all, every unit already has a unique name and can be accessed without any trouble or relevant overhead. However, the important thing remains clean. No XML ENTERPRISE shit, not even ((excessive amounts) of (sexprs)). Just content and maybe simple lispy markup.
Also, what is the consensus on having an index for each site? Right now, there is no way to see which ``subpages'' are accessible. What if every site contained an index that lists all accessible items, complete with their associated units for content and layout? In theory, this sounds easy to navigate and provides a simple entry point for clients, but I might have missed something important.
>>115 Admin-sama thought about setting up a /prog/ repo recently, maybe he already did. You'll probably find him on the IRC.
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Anonymous2014-05-29 1:28
I could do it in chicken scheme though if people would rather. The way it would work is it wwould just be the login shell, instead of bash.. but it just interfaces with the board doesnt let you run commands
>>124 Not only that, but you need a full call/cc in order to implement let-values, let-values* and values.
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Anonymous2015-04-19 5:46
While you mentally masturbate to ideas of webbrowsers you could fork chromium and cut out the bullshit in few days and write some better interface/optimize the code/etc. Writing a "right thing" from scratch in "the right language" will take years and will be crippled in the future. Forking a real complete browser will take days, and its "worse is better", getting things done faster and you can steal features from the main branch directly.
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Anonymous2015-04-19 6:28
>>126 /g/ tried that, but they gave up after a few days.
you could fork chromium and cut out the bullshit in few days
I wish! I did consider this and looked into it a bit. It turns out you need a supercomputer to compile chromium.
Writing a "right thing" from scratch in "the right language" will take years and will be crippled in the future
gtfo with your "worse is better" garbage. People like you are why everything is awful.
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Anonymous2015-04-19 14:41
>>129 Browsers written in LITHP/Haskell/Etc 1. 2. 3.
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Anonymous2015-04-19 14:53
Shouldn't an average LISP genius create a browser from macros and duct tape in a day(according Paul Graham)? Why these oppressive imperative shitlords have the monopoly on browsers?
>>131 it's impossible today to write a web browser unless you are a world power like apple, microsoft, mozilla or google.
the whole point of >>1 is to create a new system to replace the web that CAN be implemented by a lisp wizard (or some dedicated folks in any other language on any platform)
The result of this is that users would have control of their own software and what their computers do.. sadly this is not whats happening today as evidenced by mozilla "pioneers of the open web" pushing DRM on everyone.
Nowhere in the OP says the new web browser needs to be used by every single nigger in the world. Having a web browser used by a handful of people who can actually use a computer should be enough for meeting OP's goal.
