On: Pliant language and FullPliant operating system

[twic]

There are no links on the page. There are spans, styled to look like links, with an attached event handler which sends some cryptic ID associated with the pseudo-link to the server over a websocket. The server sends back messages on the websocket which look like:

  url_call /page/pliant/ZI0TDFOV/0DFXKE5\u0001\u0002

The handler on the websocket reads the messages (in a slightly roundabout way) and passes them to a function which parses them (in a highly roundabout way), and then goes into a big if-else ladder which dispatches on the first token to do various things; commands supported are:

  section_overwrite
  section_head
  section_tail
  section_before
  section_after
  section_delete
  image_write
  image_copy
  url_call
  url_jump
  url_return
  focus_set
  scroll
  hook_visible
  clipboard_trigger
  javascript

The url_call command winds up doing this:

      window.location.href = decodeURI(arg[1]);

It's ingenious, but completely demented and unnecessary.

[iainmerrick → twic]

That is totally nuts but I kind of love it. At least you can’t say he isn’t using his own tools. Talk about dogfooding.

[brezelgoring → twic]

>It's ingenious, but completely demented and unnecessary

The story of this project in its entirety, that is.