Controlling Control Flow in Web Applications

13 years 4 months ago

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Control flow is often key problem in current web applications. For example, using the back button gives a POSTDATA error, using multiple windows books the wrong hotel, and sending a link to a friend does not work. Previous solutions used continuations as a model for user interaction. However continuations are insufficient as a model of all web interactions. We believe the protocol and browsers themselves are insufficiently powerful to represent the control flow desired in a web application. Our solution is to extend the protocol and browser sufficiently that these problems can be avoided. We seek to be agnostic about how web applications are written and instead recognise that many of the problems stem from underlying weaknesses in the protocol. As an example, the application ought to be able to inform the browser that pressing back on a payment confirmation page is not allowed. Instead, the cached page can be displayed in a read-only, archive fashion to the user, or a new page can be ...

Robin Message, Alan Mycroft

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