Adam Thompson <[email protected]> writes:

> In addition, given the way web 2.0 works,
> we realy need to get rid of the manual timer mechanism sooner rather than 
> later
> as otherwise timing critical ajax stuff can *never* work,

The problem is a mismatch between the way edbrowse works and the way the
ajax web works.  Edbrowse is very synchronous.  The state of the program
only changes at the user's request.  Nothing really happens in the
background, *ever*.  Of course, that changed slightly with the addition
of background downloads, but edbrowse is still pretty synchronous.
This model is comfortable for some of us, including me.  If I'm
browsing a buffer, reading along, I know that the buffer isn't going to
change out from under me.  If it's going to change, it does so because I
told the program to take some action.
This is the teletype paradigm.

On the other hand, with ajax, you have all kinds of things happening in
the background.  What happens if I'm reading along in my buffer and some
javascript timer fires to update the page?  Will I end up reading at the
same place where I was?  It's even possible that the thing I was reading
no longer exists.  It's very asynchronous.  The Ajax model works well
for GUIs, because GUIs are also highly asynchronous.

So our ultimate task will be trying to smoosh the asynchronous paradigm
into the teletype paradigm, also known as forcing a square peg to fit a
round hole.

-- Chris
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