2009-11-12 Scaling the Web with Prudence, Tal Liron

Why fight the web when you can join it?

Prudence is an open source framework for building scalable web frontends and network services. It stands out from other web frameworks in that it is designed from the ground up to scale. It adheres to proven REST (Representational State Transfer) principles, which work with the web's inherently scalable architecture, rather than trying to force it into other, limiting paradigms.

Your Prudence applications can support rich clients (AJAX), thin clients (pure HTML), and happy mixes between the two, using the programming language of your choice among JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Groovy.

In this presentation, we'll use Python to quickly create a fun web service based on Prudence. We'll also go over some REST essentials, and see why REST is bringing internet application development back to its basics.

Tal Liron has been programming computers since he was 4 years old. He has recently founded Three Crickets, a software house specializing in massively scalable technologies, and is currently employed by crowdSPRING, an exciting online marketplace for graphic design. He is working on finishing a PhD in cultural anthropology at the University of Chicago, is getting certified to teach yoga, and is working on producing his original music. You know, just in case this computer stuff doesn't work out.

* Although there will be no food served at this event, you are free to "brown bag" it and bring in food from the outside to eat during the social hour.  The Chicago Chapter of the ACM will not be providing a food service for this meeting in order to allow for free admission by all interested in attending.  Everyone can bring in any type of food aside from liquor that they like and there are many types of restaurants and fast food venues in the immediate area. Why no food provided at the meeting?