User-friendly functional programming for web mashups

MashMaker is a web-based tool that makes it easy for a normal user to create web mashups by browsing around, without needing to type, or plan in advance what they want to do. Like a web browser, Mashmaker allows users to create mashups by browsing, rather than writing code, and allows users to bookmark interesting things they find, forming new widgets -- reusable mashup fragments. Like a spreadsheet, MashMaker mixes program and data and allows ad-hoc unstructured editing of programs MashMaker is also a modern functional programming language with non-side effecting expressions, higher order functions, and lazy evaluation. MashMaker programs can be manipulated either textually, or through an interactive tree representation, in which a program is presented together with the values it produces. In order to cope with this unusual domain, MashMaker contains a number of deviations from normal function languages. The most notable of these is that, in order to allow the programmer to write pro...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: ICFP
• Authors: Robert Ennals, David Gay
• Keywords: Ad-hoc Unstructured Editing, ICFP 2007, Normal Function Languages, Programming Languages, Reusable Mashup Fragments