[Ur] Using Ur/Web to create standalone JS applications

[Adam Chlipala]

Vag Vagoff wrote:
> Can Ur/Web be used to create standalone Javascript applications? (e.g. 
> for use with JSDB)

I suppose JSDB is something for server-side programming?  If so, then, 
like Marc said, this was asked a few days ago on this list, and the 
answer is that the Ur/Web compiler does not have a backend that 
generates server-side JavaScript.

If you just want to build a standalone client-side application with only 
HTML and JavaScript, then Ur/Web should work fine as it is today.  You'd 
just have to use a crawler to save static versions of the (hopefully 
finite) set of pages that you create for the application.

> Also it seems to be significant drawback that Ur/Web compiler 
> generates native web server
> and not usual web PHP+JS application to be able deploying on standard 
> hosting. Did I miss something?

I disagree that "standard hosting" doesn't support native code.  VPS 
providers (like EC2, Linode, and Slicehost) support native x86 code as 
their default application format.  The smallest Linode and Slicehost 
VPSes are only $20/mo., which certainly seems reasonable for any 
"serious" deployment of a web application.  I would only expect the 
lowest prices for good VPSes to go down over the next few years.

If there is interest on this list, it could perhaps even be arranged for 
a group of people to share a VPS for Ur/Web development, if $20/mo. 
seems like too much for one person.