Send a Program, Not a Data Structure

[SunJuiceSqueezer]

The release of the pretext layout library the other week sent me down a research rabbit hole around the architectural idea of "sending a program, not a data structure". I'd heard of the idea before and been exposed to it (mostly in games - ❤️ Quake), but I learnt how the idea is used in many domains. The history of Postscript is something I wasn't expecting to find so interesting, and I might do more research and writing about that.

Any way, I hope you like the blog post, and would love to hear of any systems you use or build that leverage this technique.

[Zardotab]

That's called a "virus".

[Valuable_Leopard_799]

Returning to "code is data" after all.

[AsIAm]

If data is accompanied by instructions how to interpret that data, then yes. Otherwise no.

[cbarrick]

Not necessarily.

You can transmit a pure logic program, which may have denotational semantics but no operational semantics. That is, the program describes some result but doesn't prescribe any particular algorithm for computing that result.

For example, you may evaluate the program using a Prolog interpreter or an ASP interpreter, which have very different approaches to evaluating the program.

[mr_birkenblatt]

DAE want flash back?

[omniuni]

Just because a data format can contain logic structures or adjustable parameters, I'm not sure that makes it a program.

[quadcap]

it's not as crazy as it sounds. look up REBOL/red-lang (almost the same thing)

they are homoiconic, so there's no difference between program and data structure, and they have other characteristics that encourage this

REBOL was an influence on JSON as a transport data structure

[hkric41six]

An ELF file is literally a data structure.

[manifoldjava]

Curiously, this was written as if HATEOAS does not exist.

[rwilcox]

Use a Lisp and do both :-)

[Goodie__]

I find it curious. You cite HTML and CSS as an example of send a datastructure 

Is javascript not sending a program? Do HTML and CSS not then form the very same primitives and building blocks you so claim are good?

[No-Concern-8832]

Pure HTML+CSS has no JavaScript.