Title: Curl: a language for web content

Authors: Steve Ward, Mat Hostetter

Addresses: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. Curl Corporation, Cambridge, MA, USA

Abstract: We describe a language designed for the representation of a broad spectrum of web content, including formatted text, graphics, and programmed application-level function. The approach described maps conventional markup tags to underlying, more general programming constructs, and provides local extensibility of the markup language by addition of programmed objects, procedures, and macros to the underlying object-oriented programming language. An implementation strategy based on a mix of static and dynamic just-in-time compilation techniques is described. The discussion focuses on a number of specific technical challenges raised by the language|s breadth and performance goals, and the impact of these issues on Curl|s architecture.

Keywords: web language; programming language design; content delivery; incremental compilation; extensible language design; markup language.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWET.2003.003259

International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology, 2003 Vol.1 No.1, pp.41 - 62

Available online: 14 Dec 2003 *

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