Org-Mode/Emacs proposal for the GSoC 2012

[Thorsten]

Hi Jose, Hi List, 

after communicating with Bastien, I send you the proposal for an
Org-Mode/Emacs GSoC project (which can be found, among other ideas, on
the Org-Mode GSoC 2012 ideas page:
http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/gsoc2012/orgmode-gsoc2012-ideas.html)

Please let me know if you need more info about the project idea or about
me. Bastien and/or Eric (Schulte) could be (official) mentors for this
project from the Org side, and there will be an (informal) mentor on the
PicoLisp side of the project too.

,--------------------------------------------------------------------
| Real webprogramming with Org Mode and PicoLisp
| 
| PicoLisp is one out of many Org Babel languages, but may be special
| in the sense that it does not only contribute to the static
| webpublishing capacities, but may introduce dynamic webprogramming
| on top of a real database into Org Mode.
| 
| Real interactive webprogramming frequently involves a (SQL)
| database like MySQL, a programming language like PHP or Python to
| build a MVC (Model-View-Controller) application on top of the
| database, a web framework for that programming language to make the
| programmers life easier (e.g. Django for Python), and a persistence
| layer that abstract away the conceptual mismatch between the SQL
| database and the (mostly) object-oriented application. Sometimes, a
| WYSIWYG html editor like MS Frontpage is involved too, when
| webdesigners design the UI of the application.
| 
| Such an application needs user input (via <form> or <input>
| elements in the html pages) and needs to adapt dynamically to the
| users actions and queries by updating either the whole page or only
| parts of it (Javascript). For each user, a session is needed to
| keep track of the state of the application during his/her visit.
| 
| This kind of dynamic webprogramming can't be done with Org Mode.
| Typical webpages made with Org Mode are static in nature, even if
| they update their content frequently with some cron jobs on the
| server. There is no interaction with the user.
| 
| Considering the web stack for dynamic web apps described above, Org
| Mode really functions as a kind of 'Frontpage on steroids' for
| highly skilled academics. The project idea is to let PicoLisp
| replace all the other elements of the webstack and combine Org Mode
| and PicoLisp into an entirely Lisp-based framework for dynamic web
| programming.
| 
| In the PicoLisp application framework, UI and database are unified.
| Database objects are first class members of the language, and the
| UI elements act directly on this object-oriented lisp database
| (that is fast and scalable). No external SQL storage is needed, no
| persistence layer between the relational world of the DB and the
| object-oriented world of the application, and no glue code
| (controller) that connects the view to the model.
| 
| By merging PicoLisp's framework for rapid web-application
| development with Org Modes framework for rapid (web-) content
| production via Org Babel, new kinds of websites produced with Org
| Mode should become possible [Mentor: Bastien and/or Eric Schulte]
`--------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
cheers,
Thorsten