Composing applications by dropping web components into directories

Developers build WHIFF applications much like they build static web content, PHP applications, JSP pages, or ASP pages among others -- the developer "drops" files into a directory, and the files are automatically used to respond to URLs related to the filename. This intuitive and ubiquitous approach to organizing web components is not automatically supported by other WSGI infrastructures.

For example consider the process of adding a bar chart to this WHIFF documentation. ‡  

• The WHIFF documentation is located on my laptop in the directory /Users/Aaron/whiff/doc/docroot
• I have configured my web server to serve the documentation in the directory from the URL prefix http://aaron.oirt.rutgers.edu/myapp/docs/.
• When I add an application /Users/Aaron/whiff/doc/docroot/barChart1.py to the directory the server automatically uses the application to respond to the corresponding URL http://aaron.oirt.rutgers.edu/myapp/docs/barChart1.
• The barChart1 application may be used to format a web page on its own or it may be included in a larger page like this
  If this text isn't replaced a chart
  failed to load.
  You may need to upgrade your flash player.
  using the WHIFF configuration template include directive

  {{include "barChart1"/}}
  

  and the WHIFF infrastructure automatically locates the bar chart application.

WHIFF generalizes the "drop files in a directory" manner of organization by allowing component URLs to refer to application fragments and middlewares as well as applications. ‡  

By mapping applications, middlewares, and fragments in a natural manner from directory locations to URL locations both for external and internal use the WHIFF infrastructure makes it easier to develop, compose and administer web applications.

Whiff simplifies namespace management

The WHIFF infrastructure also seeks to reduce the complexity of developing web applications by supporting conventions and tools to unify web development namespaces into three categories: ‡  

By coordinating each namespace category WHIFF makes it easier to understand, create, and modify Web applications without sacrificing flexibility. ‡  

In order to allow applications to use these unified namespaces effectively WHIFF also provides