> Imagine if a Web application were more like your operating system. You could run programs that add features, choose where your data goes, and share your changes with other users.

Awesome.

meh,it's the definition of SOA.

Sure, but I don't see other people doing SOA in the browser. So I will amend my statement: "In the browser!?! Awesome."

The IPC architecture is SOA, but the OS comparison comes from the user control over its config and the Worker threads. I know "OS" gets thrown around too much with Web projects, but I went with it anyway.

Might be better to think in terms of Emacs - very plugin-driven.

I don't quite understand what this is for? I get that you can create pipelines, but at a higher level when would one need this functionality?

It's for building Web applications that can be modified independently of the host service by the users. Think of applications that are plugin heavy - Emacs, Vim, Sublime, Photoshop, 3dsmax, MS Excel (in its way). Similar things could be done with, for instance, user-pluggable forums. The goal is to use Worker VM containers and permissioning so that plugins are safe to share between users.

I see. Makes sense.

Really loving the piping example. It would be interesting to see more small composable utility web services out there. A sort of standard library of APIs

Upvote for the Pink Floyd reference.

hmm I can't seem to figure out whether this does or doesn't have any support for HTTP pipelining.

HTTPL multiplexes all of its messages over a single channel (which postMessage is) and so it supports pipelining and full-duplex.

Why not just use sockets?