Multitier programming
Multitier programming (or tierless programming) is a programming paradigm for distributed software, which typically follows a multitier architecture, physically separating different functional aspects of the software into different tiers (e.g., the client, the server and the database in a Web application). Multitier programming allows functionalities that span multiple of such tiers to be developed in a single compilation unit using a single programming language. Without multitier programming, tiers are developed using different languages, e.g., JavaScript for the Web client, PHP for the Web server and SQL for the database. Multitier programming is often integrated into general-purpose languages by extending them with support for distribution. Concepts from multitier programming were pioneered by the Hop and Links languages and have found industrial adoption in solutions such as Ocsigen, Opa, WebSharper, Meteor or GWT. Multitier programming provides a global view on the distributed system. This aspect has been shown similar to other programming paradigms such as choreographic programming, macroprogramming, and aggregate computing.
Multitier programming (or tierless programming) is a programming paradigm for distributed software, which typically follows a multitier architecture, physically separating different functional aspects of the software into different tiers (e.g., the client, the server and the database in a Web application[1]). Multitier programming allows functionalities that span multiple of such tiers to be developed in a single compilation unit using a single programming language. Without multitier programming, tiers are developed using different languages, e.g., JavaScript for the Web client, PHP for the Web server and SQL for the database.[2] Multitier programming is often integrated into general-purpose languages by extending them with support for distribution.[3]
Concepts from multitier programming were pioneered by the Hop[4] and Links[5] languages and have found industrial adoption in solutions such as Ocsigen,[6] Opa,[7] WebSharper,[8] Meteor[9] or GWT.[10]
Multitier programming provides a global view on the distributed system. This aspect has been shown similar to other programming paradigms such as choreographic programming,[11] macroprogramming,[12] and aggregate computing.[13][14]
Context
[edit]The code of the different tiers can be executed in a distributed manner on different networked computers. For instance, in a three-tier architecture, a system is divided into three main layers – typically the presentation, business, and data tiers. This approach has the benefit that by dividing a system into layers, the functionality implemented in one of the layers can be changed independently of the other layers. On the other hand, this architectural decision scatters a cross-cutting functionality belonging to several tiers over several compilation units.
In multitier programming, the different tiers are implemented using a single programming language. Different compilation backends take into account the destination tier (e.g., Java for a server and JavaScript for a web browser). Consequently, a functionality that is spread over tiers can be implemented in a single compilation unit of a multitier program.
Example
[edit]At their core, multitier languages allow developers to define for different pieces of code the tiers to which the code belongs. The language features that enable this definition are quite diverse between different multitier languages, ranging from staging to annotations to types. The following example shows an Echo client–server application that illustrates different approaches. In the example, the client sends a message to the server and the server returns the same message to the client, where it is appended to a list of received messages.
Echo application in Hop.js
[edit]service echo() {
var input = <input type="text" />
return <html>
<body onload=~{
var ws = new WebSocket("ws://localhost:" + ${hop.port} + "/hop/ws")
ws.onmessage = function(event) { document.getElemenetById("list").appendChild(<li>${event.data}</li>) }
}>
<div>
${input}
<button onclick=~{ ws.send(${input}.value) }>Echo!</button>
</div>
<ul id="list" />
</body>
</html>
}
var wss = new WebSocketServer("ws")
wss.onconnection = function(event){
var ws = event.value
ws.onmessage = function(event) { ws.send(event.value) }
}
Hop uses staging to embed code that is to be run on the client into a server-side program: Using the ~{…} notation, the code for the onload (Line 4) and onclick (Line 10) handlers is not immediately executed but the server generates the code for later execution on the client. On the other hand, the ${…} notation escapes one level of program generation. The expressions hop.port (Line 5), event.data (Line 6) and input (Line 9 and 10) are evaluated by the outer server program and the values to which they evaluate are injected into the generated client program. Hop supports full stage programming, i.e., ~{…} expressions can be arbitrarily nested such that not only server-side programs can generate client-side programs but also client-side programs are able to generate other client-side programs.
HTML can be embedded directly in Hop code. HTML generated on the server (Line 2–14) is passed to the client. HTML generated on the client can be added to the page using the standard DOM API (Line 6). Hop supports bidirectional communication between a running server and a running client instance through its standard library. The client connects to the WebSocket server through the standard HTML5 API (Line 5) and sends the current input value (Line 10). The server opens a WebSocket server (Line 17) that returns the value back to the client (Line 20). So-called services, which are executed on the server and produce a value that is returned to the client that invoked the service. For example, the echo service (Line 1) produces the HTML page served to the web client of the Echo application. Thus, the code in a service block is executed on the server.
Echo application in Links
[edit]fun echo(item) server {
item
}
fun main() server {
page
<html>
<body>
<form l:onsubmit="{appendChildren(<li>{stringToXml(echo(item))}</li>, getNodeById("list"))}">
<input l:name="item" />
<button type="submit">Echo!</button>
</form>
<ul id="list" />
</body>
</html>
}
main()
Links uses annotations on functions to specify whether they run on the client or on the server (Line 1 and 5). Upon request from the client, the server executes the main function (Line 18), which constructs the code that is sent to the client. Links allows embedding XML code (Line 7–15). XML attributes with the l: prefix are treated specially. The l:name attribute (Line 10) declares an identifier to which the value of the input field is bound. The identifier can be used elsewhere (Line 9). The code to be executed for the l:onsubmit handler (Line 9) is not immediately executed but compiled to JavaScript for client-side execution. Curly braces indicate Links code embedded into XML. The l:onsubmit handler sends the current input value item to the server by calling echo. The item is returned by the server and appended to the list of received items using standard DOM APIs. The call to the server (Line 9) does not block the client. Instead, the continuation on the client is invoked when the result of the call is available. Client–server interaction is based on resumption passing style: Using continuation passing style transformation and defunctionalization, remote calls are implemented by passing the name of a function for the continuation and the data needed to continue the computation.
Echo application in ScalaLoci
[edit]@multitier object Application {
@peer type Server <: { type Tie <: Single[Client] }
@peer type Client <: { type Tie <: Single[Server] }
val message = on[Client] { Event[String]() }
val echoMessage = on[Server] { message.asLocal }
def main() = on[Client] {
val items = echoMessage.asLocal.list
val list = Signal { ol(items() map { message => li(message) }) }
val inp = input.render
dom.document.body = body(
div(
inp,
button(onclick := { () => message.fire(inp.value) })("Echo!")),
list.asFrag).render
}
}
ScalaLoci is a language that targets generic distributed systems rather than the Web only, i.e., it is not restricted to a client–server architecture. To this end, ScalaLoci supports peer types to encode the different tiers at the type level. Placement types are used to assign locations to data and computations. ScalaLoci supports multitier reactives – language abstractions for reactive programming that are placed on specific locations – for composing data flows cross different peers.
The application first defines an input field (Line 11) using the ScalaTags library.[15] The value of this field is used in the click event handler of a button (Line 15) to fire the message event with the current value of the input field. The value is then propagated to the server (Line 6) and back to the client (Line 9). On the client, the value of the event are accumulated using the list function and mapped to an HTML list (Line 10). This list is then used in the HTML (Line 16) to display the previous inputs.
List of multitier programming languages
[edit]- Hop/Hop.js[4][16][17]
- Links[5][18]
- Ur/Web[19]
- Eliom/Ocsigen[6][20]
- ScalaLoci[21]
- StiP.js[22][23]
- Scala Multi-Tier FRP[24]
- Opa[7]
- AmbientTalk/R[25][26]
- ML5[27]
- WebSharper[8]
- Haste[28]
- Fun[29]
- Koka[30]
- Multi-Tier Calculus[31]
- Swift[32]
- Volta[33]
- GWT[10]
- Meteor[9]
- J-Orchestra[34]
- Hiphop[35]
- Distributed Orc[36]
- Jif/split[37]
- Fission[38]
- SIF[39]
- WebDSL[40]
- Acute[41]
- Mobl[42]
- High-Level Abstractions for Web Programming[43]
References
[edit]- ^ Hull, Richard; Thiemann, Peter; Wadler, Philip (2007). "07051 Working Group Outcomes – Programming Paradigms for the Web: Web Programming and Web Services". Programming Paradigms for the Web: Web Programming and Web Services. Dagstuhl Seminar Proceedings. 07051. Dagstuhl, Germany: Internationales Begegnungs- und Forschungszentrum für Informatik (IBFI).
- ^ Weisenburger, Pascal; Wirth, Johannes; Salvaneschi, Guido (2020). "A Survey of Multitier Programming" (PDF). ACM Comput. Surv. 53 (4): 81:1–81:35. doi:10.1145/3397495. S2CID 218517772.
- ^ Caldwell, Sam (2016). "General Purpose Languages Extended for Distribution". In Miller, Heather (ed.). Programming Models for Distributed Computing.
- ^ a b Serrano, Manuel (2012). "Multitier programming in Hop". Commun. ACM. 55 (8): 53–59. doi:10.1145/2240236.2240253. S2CID 2152326.
- ^ a b Cooper, Ezra (2006). "Links: Web Programming Without Tiers". Formal Methods for Components and Objects. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 4709. pp. 266–296. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-74792-5_12. hdl:20.500.11820/ef5f100a-0366-4b85-8ef1-622fd7fbb53a. ISBN 978-3-540-74791-8. S2CID 16397220.
- ^ a b Balat, Vincent (2006). "Ocsigen: typing web interaction with objective Caml": 84–94. doi:10.1145/1159876.1159889. S2CID 6131454.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ a b Rajchenbach-Teller, D., & Sinot, Franois-Régis. (2010). Opa: Language support for a sane, safe and secure web. Proceedings of the OWASP AppSec Research, 2010(1).
- ^ a b Bjornson, Joel; Tayanovskyy, Anton; Granicz, Adam (2010). "Composing Reactive GUIs in F# Using WebSharper". Implementation and Application of Functional Languages. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 6647. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. p. 49. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-24276-2_13. ISBN 978-3-642-24275-5.
- ^ a b Strack, Isaac (January 2012). Getting started with Meteor JavaScript framework. Birmingham. ISBN 978-1-78216-083-0. OCLC 823718999.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b Kereki, Federico, 1960- (2011). Essential GWT: building for the web with Google Web toolkit 2. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley. ISBN 978-0-321-70563-1. OCLC 606556208.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Giallorenzo, Saverio; Montesi, Fabrizio; Peressotti, Marco; Richter, David; Salvaneschi, Guido; Weisenburger, Pascal (2021). Møller, Anders; Sridharan, Manu (eds.). "Multiparty Languages: The Choreographic and Multitier Cases". 35th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs). 194. Dagstuhl, Germany: Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik: 22:1–22:27. doi:10.4230/LIPIcs.ECOOP.2021.22. ISBN 978-3-95977-190-0. S2CID 235748561.
- ^ Casadei, Roberto (2023-01-11). "Macroprogramming: Concepts, State of the Art, and Opportunities of Macroscopic Behaviour Modelling". ACM Computing Surveys. 55 (13s). Association for Computing Machinery (ACM): 1–37. arXiv:2201.03473. doi:10.1145/3579353. ISSN 0360-0300. S2CID 245837830.
- ^ Beal, Jacob; Pianini, Danilo; Viroli, Mirko (2015). "Aggregate Programming for the Internet of Things". Computer. 48 (9). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE): 22–30. doi:10.1109/mc.2015.261. hdl:11585/520779. ISSN 0018-9162. S2CID 26413.
- ^ Audrito, Giorgio; Casadei, Roberto; Damiani, Ferruccio; Salvaneschi, Guido; Viroli, Mirko (2022). Ali, Karim; Vitek, Jan (eds.). "Functional Programming for Distributed Systems with XC". 36th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs). 222. Dagstuhl, Germany: Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik: 20:1–20:28. doi:10.4230/LIPIcs.ECOOP.2022.20. ISBN 978-3-95977-225-9. S2CID 249961384.
- ^ "ScalaTags". www.lihaoyi.com. Retrieved 2021-10-11.
- ^ Serrano, Manuel (2006). "Hop: a language for programming the web 2.0": 975–985. doi:10.1145/1176617.1176756. S2CID 14306230.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Serrano, Manuel (2016). "A glimpse of Hopjs". Proceedings of the 21st ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming. pp. 180–192. doi:10.1145/2951913.2951916. ISBN 9781450342193. S2CID 18393160.
- ^ Fowler, Simon (2019). "Exceptional asynchronous session types: session types without tiers". Proc. ACM Program. Lang. 3 (POPL): 28:1–28:29. doi:10.1145/3290341. hdl:1808/27512. S2CID 57757469.
- ^ Chlipala, Adam (2015). "Ur/Web: A Simple Model for Programming the Web": 153–165. doi:10.1145/2676726.2677004. S2CID 9440677.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Radanne, Gabriel (2018). "Tierless Web Programming in the Large". Companion of the Web Conference 2018 on the Web Conference 2018 - WWW '18. pp. 681–689. doi:10.1145/3184558.3185953. ISBN 9781450356404. S2CID 3304415.
- ^ Weisenburger, Pascal (2018). "Distributed system development with ScalaLoci". Proc. ACM Program. Lang. 2 (OOPSLA): 129:1–129:30. doi:10.1145/3276499. S2CID 53090153.
- ^ Philips, Laure (2014). "Towards Tierless Web Development without Tierless Languages". Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming & Software. pp. 69–81. doi:10.1145/2661136.2661146. ISBN 9781450332101. S2CID 15774367.
- ^ Philips, Laure (2018). "Search-based Tier Assignment for Optimising Offline Availability in Multi-tier Web Applications". Programming Journal. 2 (2): 3. arXiv:1712.01161. doi:10.22152/programming-journal.org/2018/2/3. S2CID 11256561.
- ^ Reynders, Bob (2014). "Multi-Tier Functional Reactive Programming for the Web". Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming & Software. pp. 55–68. doi:10.1145/2661136.2661140. ISBN 9781450332101. S2CID 16761616.
- ^ Carreton, Andoni Lombide (2010). "Loosely-Coupled Distributed Reactive Programming in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks". Objects, Models, Components, Patterns. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 6141. pp. 41–60. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-13953-6_3. ISBN 978-3-642-13952-9.
- ^ Dedecker, Jessie (2006). "Ambient-Oriented Programming in Ambient Talk". Ambient-Oriented Programming in AmbientTalk. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 4067. pp. 230–254. doi:10.1007/11785477_16. ISBN 978-3-540-35726-1.
- ^ VII, Tom Murphy (2007). "Type-Safe Distributed Programming with ML5". Trustworthy Global Computing. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 4912. pp. 108–123. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-78663-4_9. ISBN 978-3-540-78662-7. S2CID 12534714.
- ^ Ekblad, Anton; Claessen, Koen (2015-05-11). "A seamless, client-centric programming model for type safe web applications". ACM SIGPLAN Notices. 49 (12): 79–89. doi:10.1145/2775050.2633367. ISSN 0362-1340.
- ^ "Fun (a programming language for the realtime web)". marcuswest.in. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
- ^ Leijen, Daan (2014). "Koka: Programming with Row Polymorphic Effect Types". Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science. 153: 100–126. arXiv:1406.2061. doi:10.4204/EPTCS.153.8. S2CID 14902937.
- ^ Neubauer, Matthias (2005). "From sequential programs to multi-tier applications by program transformation". Proceedings of the 32nd ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages. pp. 221–232. doi:10.1145/1040305.1040324. ISBN 158113830X. S2CID 10338936.
- ^ ChongStephen; LiuJed; C, MyersAndrew; QiXin; VikramK; ZhengLantian; ZhengXin (2007-10-14). "Secure web applications via automatic partitioning". ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review. 41 (6): 31–44. doi:10.1145/1323293.1294265. hdl:1813/5769.
- ^ Manolescu, Dragos (2008). "Volta: Developing Distributed Applications by Recompiling". IEEE Software. 25 (5): 53–59. doi:10.1109/MS.2008.131. S2CID 24360031.
- ^ Tilevich, Eli (2002). "J-Orchestra: Automatic Java Application Partitioning". ECOOP 2002 — Object-Oriented Programming. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 2374. pp. 178–204. doi:10.1007/3-540-47993-7_8. hdl:1853/6531. ISBN 978-3-540-43759-8.
- ^ Berry, Gérard; Nicolas, Cyprien; Serrano, Manuel (2011). "Hiphop". Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGPLAN international workshop on Programming language and systems technologies for internet clients. New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. p. 49. doi:10.1145/2093328.2093337. ISBN 978-1-4503-1171-7. S2CID 1280230.
- ^ Thywissen, John A. (2016). "Implicitly Distributing Pervasively Concurrent Programs: Extended abstract": 1. doi:10.1145/2957319.2957370. S2CID 6124391.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Zdancewic, Steve (2002). "Secure program partitioning". ACM Trans. Comput. Syst. 20 (3): 283–328. doi:10.1145/566340.566343. S2CID 1776939.
- ^ Guha, Arjun; Jeannin, Jean-Baptiste; Nigam, Rachit; Tangen, Jane; Shambaugh, Rian (2017). Lerner, Benjamin S.; Bodík, Rastislav; Krishnamurthi, Shriram (eds.). "Fission: Secure Dynamic Code-Splitting for JavaScript". 2nd Summit on Advances in Programming Languages (SNAPL 2017). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs). 71. Dagstuhl, Germany: Schloss Dagstuhl–Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik: 5:1–5:13. doi:10.4230/LIPIcs.SNAPL.2017.5. ISBN 978-3-95977-032-3.
- ^ Chong, Stephen (2007). "SIF: Enforcing Confidentiality and Integrity in Web Applications".
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Groenewegen, Danny M. (2008). "WebDSL: a domain-specific language for dynamic web applications": 779–780. doi:10.1145/1449814.1449858. S2CID 8073129.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Sewell, Peter (2005). "Acute: high-level programming language design for distributed computation": 15–26. doi:10.1145/1086365.1086370. S2CID 1308126.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Hemel, Zef (2011). "Declaratively programming the mobile web with Mobl". Proceedings of the 2011 ACM international conference on Object oriented programming systems languages and applications. pp. 695–712. doi:10.1145/2048066.2048121. ISBN 9781450309400. S2CID 10480906.
- ^ Richard-Foy, Julien (2013). "Efficient high-level abstractions for web programming". Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Generative programming: Concepts & experiences. pp. 53–60. doi:10.1145/2517208.2517227. ISBN 9781450323734. S2CID 14305623.