[gnaritas]

Generated html; callbacks make for rapid prototyping by grabbing necessary state directly from the environment rather than making you specify the state field by field in the URL. Your 3 hour prototype doesn't come close to the features in this forum so it's not comparable. No links ever require sever state if you take the pains to manually specify routing and parameter information for your links, but that's something callbacks eliminate the need for by trading server state for programmer time.

[wvenable]

I think you massively over-estimate the functionality of this site. I can actually see the immense value of using closures for maintaining state in an application that actually needs state (any site containing a progression of forms, for example). HN is ridiculously simple for a site. With few requests requiring requiring much in the way of previous state.

I understand why it's designed this way -- he's got a tool meant for more complex tasks than what it's used for on this site. He used that tool because it's what he knows. But I really can't see it saving that much programmer effort in general.

[gnaritas]

I think you over-estimate what you can do in three hours and underestimate how much non UI stuff there is in trying to keep out garbage and prevent voter rings and score karma and vary behavior based on that karma and probably a dozen other little small things.

[wvenable]

I certainly don't think 3 hours is enough for this site but then pg has put in a lot more time in than just his initial prototype as well. But the functionality of closures and server-side state aren't needed for this kind of site at all. Nothing you mentioned above seems related to that functionality either.

[gnaritas]

It's not relevant whether they're needed or not if you use closures as your default linking mechanism because it's always the easier route. They're not needed for any site ever, they're just damn convenient. You go back through the app replacing closures with more verbose and direct linking as time permits; clearly pg hasn't found the time yet.

[wvenable]

You could route URLs for this site with a moderately sized switch statement. The code to route everything would be smaller than the code needed to just route closures before you've setup a single one.

Obviously replacing closures with directly linking is more difficult than just using direct linking in the first place.

[gnaritas]

Incorrect; routing closures is free, automated by the web framework, something no web framework does for direct linking. Look at Rails, every Rails programmer spends a large amount of time figuring out and managing routing. Look at Seaside which uses callbacks just like this site, you can build the entire app without spending a second on routing URL's because callbacks do it for free as part of the framework, completely automated.