Curl, the language/environment/markup language...(Spanish Civil War)...

[Christopher Barber]

>>>>> Chris Gonnerman <chris.gonnerman at 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.

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