Is there a inherent contradiction between a rich client/server application and a thin client? Can a web application provide the control flow that we have come to expect from good desktop applications? Why is it that so many otherwise professionally-developed web sites (including on-line banking, travel reservations, and even the OOPSLA submission system) include warnings like, "Do not save, print or reload this page!" or "Do not use your browser's button!"? Has the web really set programming back to the era of GOTO? Is a basic subroutine call too much to ask from your web framework? Why is it that popular web frameworks devote so much to handling object-relational mapping?

While other web frameworks are evolutionary, Seaside has been characterized as revolutionary, even heretical. What makes Seaside different? Is it the funny URLs? Is it continuations? Is it the ability to create reusable domain-specific components? All of the above?

This hands-on tutorial will present Seaside (a free, open source, web framework) and walk through the process of building a pure-objects application (UI to database) using Squeak and GLASS (GemStone, Linux, Apache, Seaside, and Smalltalk). You may bring your own computer or team up with someone else who brought one.