Tasklets: Client-side evaluation for iTask3

Abstract

iTask3 is the most recent incarnation of the iTask framework for the construction of distributed systems where users work together on the internet. It offers a domain specific language for defining applications, embedded into the lazy functional language Clean. From the mere declarative specification a complete multi-user web application is generated. Although the generated nature of the user interface (UI) entails a number of benefits for the programmer, it suffers from the lack of possibility to create custom UI building blocks. In this paper, we present an extension to the iTask3 framework which introduces the concept of tasklets for the development of custom, interactive web components in a single language manner. We further show that the presented tasklet architecture can be generalized in such a way that arbitrary parts of an iTask application can be executed on the client.