Curl, the language/environment/markup language...(Spanish Civil War)...
Ron Stephens
Curl Corporation is a new MIT inspired outfit whose owners includes Tim
Berners-Lee and Michael Dertoutzos (sp??) . I went there and I find it
interesting, I wonder if anyone else has checked it out. If so, what do
you think???
If you click on developers, then on discussion forums, you will see that
I am their primary poster ;-))) and I ask such questions as, what can
curl do that python can't??? ;-))0
Curl is a markup language, programming language (it's named after the
curly braces), and you can download a client engine that compiles and
runs curl code on the client. The main use is for graphics, to speed up
execution of graphics over the web, I guess. The idea seems good to me.
But while it is free for personal use, a company must negotiate and pay
fees to Curl Corp. based on bytes of curl code downloaded or some such
stuff...Anyway, some folks have put an awful lot of work into creating
this new language and environment and the associated tools...
OK, Pythonistas, should we start a Spanish Civil War over curly
braces??? Just kidding, I think, I havew just wanted to use that
"Spanish Civl War" line ever since I became a Pythonista...;-))))
Ron Stephens
William Tanksley
>www.curl.com is the new website that I think just went up last Friday.
>Curl Corporation is a new MIT inspired outfit whose owners includes Tim
>Berners-Lee and Michael Dertoutzos (sp??) . I went there and I find it
>interesting, I wonder if anyone else has checked it out. If so, what do
>you think???
New? Curl, the language, is _old_. It's kind of a replacement for HTML,
TeX, Javascript, and CSS, all in one language.
http://www.cag.lcs.mit.edu/curl/
The corporation's Curl is different, although apparently the same basic
idea.
No competition from or to Python. Ugh, what a horrible startup time -- no
competition to Java either.
I liked the original language, although it had very basic problems.
>Ron Stephens
--
-William "Billy" Tanksley
Jeremy Hylton
RS> www.curl.com is the new website that I think just went up last
RS> Friday. Curl Corporation is a new MIT inspired outfit whose
RS> owners includes Tim Berners-Lee and Michael Dertoutzos (sp??)
Dertouzos. I think that TimBL and MLD were less involved in the
original technology than the people in Steve Ward's group, but I could
be mistaken.
Also, the site has been up since sometime last fall or summer.
Perhaps the discussion forums are new.
Haven't thought much about how the language relates to Python. I
think there's more emphasis on performance -- and certainly more on
curly braces :-).
Jeremy
Andrew Maizels
> www.curl.com is the new website that I think just went up last Friday.
> Curl Corporation is a new MIT inspired outfit whose owners includes Tim
> Berners-Lee and Michael Dertoutzos (sp??) . I went there and I find it
> interesting, I wonder if anyone else has checked it out. If so, what do
> you think???
I think Microsoft has a new competitor in the dumb stunt competition.
Check out their (Curl's) pricing structure:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
We charge commercial customers based on the total volume of Curl content
executed. This allows for pay-as-you-go billing. The total cost to
commercial customers is determined by:
Baseline Price
Customers pay Curl Corporation based on the volume of Curl content
executed by their end users, as determined by a baseline price
discounted for annual volume commitments. The baseline price may be
increased for later versions of Curl products, but once established for
a specific version of a Curl product, it cannot be increased.
Volume Commitment
Customers commit to an annual volume of between $12,000 and $600,000,
payable in equal monthly installments, with a minimum of $1,000 per
month. Customers can change their volume commitment level at any time,
although they are committed to the associated monthly fee. The volume of
content executed in excess of the monthly commitment fee is billed at
the current discounted price.
[And here's the kicker:]
Price per Volume (by characters)
Curl Corporation's usage-based software compiles information from
end-user plug-ins that encounter Curl content. Included in this
information is the number of characters of Curl content that are
executed by the plug-ins. Curl Corporation's fees are derived from the
total volume of Curl content executed by the plug-ins together with a
price per one billion characters as determined by the customer's annual
minimum fee commitment.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excuse me? You're going to do *what*?!
They're dead already, they just don't know it yet.
Andrew.
--
There's only one game in town.
You can't win.
You can't break even.
You can't quit the game. -- The four laws of thermodynamics.
Erik Max Francis
> I think Microsoft has a new competitor in the dumb stunt competition.
> Check out their (Curl's) pricing structure:
...
> Excuse me? You're going to do *what*?!
>
> They're dead already, they just don't know it yet.
That is so retarded I actually had to check the page myself to make sure
you weren't pulling a gag. It really _does_ say that. Unbelievable.
--
Erik Max Francis / m...@alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
__ San Jose, CA, US / 37 20 N 121 53 W / ICQ16063900 / &tSftDotIotE
/ \ All the people in her neighborhood turn around and get mad and sing
\__/ Public Enemy
Alcyone Systems' CatCam / http://www.catcam.com/
What do your pets do all day while you're at work? Find out.
D-Man
| I think Microsoft has a new competitor in the dumb stunt competition.
| Check out their (Curl's) pricing structure:
|
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------
| [And here's the kicker:]
|
| Price per Volume (by characters)
|
| Curl Corporation's usage-based software compiles information from
| end-user plug-ins that encounter Curl content. Included in this
| information is the number of characters of Curl content that are
| executed by the plug-ins. Curl Corporation's fees are derived from the
| total volume of Curl content executed by the plug-ins together with a
| price per one billion characters as determined by the customer's annual
| minimum fee commitment.
|
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Excuse me? You're going to do *what*?!
Isn't this price structure the sort of thing that encourages Perl and
discourages Python? (as in -- use the fewest characters and
whitespace so the cost is less...) <wink>
No threats here, obviously.
-D
Fernando Rodríguez
>Andrew Maizels wrote:
>
>> I think Microsoft has a new competitor in the dumb stunt competition.
>> Check out their (Curl's) pricing structure:
> ...
>> Excuse me? You're going to do *what*?!
>>
>> They're dead already, they just don't know it yet.
>
>That is so retarded I actually had to check the page myself to make sure
>you weren't pulling a gag. It really _does_ say that. Unbelievable.
Why do you think it's SO wrong?
//-----------------------------------------------
// Fernando Rodriguez Romero
//
// frr at mindless dot com
//------------------------------------------------
Erik Max Francis
> Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>
> > That is so retarded I actually had to check the page myself to make
> > sure
> > you weren't pulling a gag. It really _does_ say that.
> > Unbelievable.
>
> Why do you think it's SO wrong?
It's a horribly bad idea if they actually expect the language to become
widely used commercially. With such licensing they are guaranteed to
drive companies away from using it. No one wants to start using a
for-the-Web language where they have to pay _per hit_.
--
Erik Max Francis / m...@alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
__ San Jose, CA, US / 37 20 N 121 53 W / ICQ16063900 / &tSftDotIotE
/ \ Defeat is a school in which truth always grows strong.
\__/ Henry Ward Beecher
Computer science / http://www.alcyone.com/max/reference/compsci/
A computer science reference.
Christopher Barber
>> "Fernando Rodríguez" wrote: Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>>
>> Why do you think it's SO wrong?
>> It's a horribly bad idea if they actually expect the language to become
>> widely used commercially. With such licensing they are guaranteed to
>> drive companies away from using it. No one wants to start using a
>> for-the-Web language where they have to pay _per hit_.
Actually, it has mostly been individual programmers who seem to dislike this
pricing scheme; we have found that businesses are fairly open to it.
Companies doing business on the web already pay huge amounts of money for
development tools, server hardware/software and maintenance, and for internet
connectivity. Unlike other development tools, Curl technology costs nothing
until you actually put it into the field and then what you pay is proportional
to your other web-hosting costs. By using Curl, you can push more of your
functionality from the server to the client and therefore require less work
from your servers. You can also deliver content to your end-users using fewer
number of bytes so you don't need to buy as much network bandwidth. The net
result is that you should actually save money using Curl technology to build
and distribute web content.
- Christopher
Erik Max Francis
> By using Curl, you can push more of your
> functionality from the server to the client and therefore require less
> work
> from your servers.
And that's true of other languages with a far wider install base and
which are free.
--
Erik Max Francis / m...@alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
__ San Jose, CA, US / 37 20 N 121 53 W / ICQ16063900 / &tSftDotIotE
/ \ Death to all fanatics!
\__/ Malaclypse the Younger
7 sisters productions / http://www.7sisters.com/
Web design for the future.
Christopher Barber
>> Christopher Barber wrote:
>> By using Curl, you can push more of your
>> functionality from the server to the client and therefore require less
>> work from your servers.
>> And that's true of other languages with a far wider install base and which
>> are free.
I am unware of any other client-side technologies, free or otherwise, that can
do what Curl can do.
- Christopher
Dave LeBlanc
A far more pernicious part of the license is that you must agree to
allow curl to send valuable demographic (and other?) data about people
visiting your curled website. You agree that this is done
automatically at whatever time the curl program wants to do this as
far as I can tell.
Marketing companies pay the likes of grocery stores for this sort of
information about product sales etc., why should you all be any
different?
Dave LeBlanc
On 12 Apr 2001 18:11:58 -0400, Christopher Barber <cba...@curl.com>
wrote:
Chris Gonnerman
From: "Christopher Barber" <cba...@curl.com>
Subject: Re: Curl, the language/environment/markup language...(Spanish Civil
War)...
> I am unware of any other client-side technologies, free or otherwise, that
can
> do what Curl can do.
>
> - Christopher
OK, I'll bite... what the heck does it do that is so cool I'd be willing to
pay you per unit executed code for it?
Christopher Barber
>> You work at/for Curl, so you're biased :-)
Of course, that is true. I should say that I myself was very skeptical about
Curl before I came to work here. It took a lot of convincing that there was
going to be a market for a new programming language, and even though I am an
engineer, I made sure to talk to Curl's marketing team and understand the
business plan before I accepted the job.
>> A far more pernicious part of
>> the license is that you must agree to allow curl to send valuable
>> demographic (and other?) data about people visiting your curled
>> website. You agree that this is done automatically at whatever time the
>> curl program wants to do this as far as I can tell.
It is not our intention at all to gather or distribute any marketing or
demographic data. All we want to know is how much Curl content is being used
from what sites. This is not my department, but I believe that we are going
to open our metering operation up to independent auditors to make sure we are
not doing anything naughty.
>> Marketing companies pay the likes of grocery stores for this sort of
>> information about product sales etc., why should you all be any different?
Because we know that people will be much less likely to want to use Curl if
they feel their personal information is being collected and sold.
- Christopher
Christopher Barber
>> I am unware of any other client-side technologies, free or otherwise, that
>> can do what Curl can do.
> OK, I'll bite... what the heck does it do that is so cool I'd be willing
> to pay you per unit executed code for it?
As I said, companies will be willing to pay based on usage if they can save
money on their web-hosting costs by requiring fewer servers and less
bandwidth. From a programmer's perspective that doesn't sound very cool but
from a business perspective it makes sense.
Nevertheless, I feel that Curl is a pretty cool language for doing web
development. It allows you to do everything in one language instead of a
mishmash of HTML, Javascript, and Flash. It is fully object-oriented with
static typing for good code generation while also allowing dynamic typing for
rapid prototyping. It is JIT compiled directly to machine code -- there is no
intervening VM. It supports advanced language features like closures,
parameterized types, dynamic code evaluation, and built-in support for units.
It has very powerful graphics and gui libraries. It has a built-in XML
parser. It has built-in support for versioning, in fact, every Curl applet or
package must begin with a herald identifying the Curl API version, as in:
{curl 1.5 applet}
This will allow us to continue to support applets and packages that were
written for earlier versions of the Curl API. It has a strong client-side
security model but still permits storage of client-side persistent data by
untrusted applets. It is suitable for producing both documents and programs,
in fact all of our internal and external documentation is written in Curl (for
that matter, Curl Surge and Surge Lab are themselves implemented almost
entirely in Curl).
Although Curl is usable as a scripting language (through the 'curl' executable
that is included with the Surge Lab download), it is not intended to compete
with other scripting languages such as Python. We have no illusions that
people will drop their favorite application and scripting languages to use the
Curl language, but we do believe that it satisfies a missing need in the
client-side web-content niche.
- Christopher
Paul Prescod
>
> >>>>> Chris Gonnerman <chris.g...@usa.net> writes:
>
> >> I am unware of any other client-side technologies, free or otherwise, that
> >> can do what Curl can do.
>
> > OK, I'll bite... what the heck does it do that is so cool I'd be willing
> > to pay you per unit executed code for it?
>
> As I said, companies will be willing to pay based on usage if they can save
> money on their web-hosting costs by requiring fewer servers and less
> bandwidth. From a programmer's perspective that doesn't sound very cool but
> from a business perspective it makes sense.
What is "in it" for the end-users? why would I install the Curl plugin.
I admit I'm one of those luddites that even thinks twice about
ShockWave/Flash/Acrobat. But even non-paranoids are resistent to
downloading binary extensions to their browsers.
--
Take a recipe. Leave a recipe.
Python Cookbook! http://www.ActiveState.com/pythoncookbook
Christopher Barber
I think that Curl is in the same boat with the other plugins that you mention.
End-users will download the plugin because of the content they can access
using it. No one would download any of those other plugins if there weren't
content that required it. Obviously this is a hurdle we will have to get over
to be succesful in the web-market but others have done it before us so I see
no reason why we can't do it as well.
Also, if the Curl technology is deployed in an intranet enviornment, in which
one company controls both the servers and the end-users installations, then
this is not an issue.
- Christopher