[elm-discuss] Feedback requested: crowdsourcing big computations with Elm

[Carlos De la Guardia]

Howdy folks,

Here's a tentative idea I'd like to get some feedback on.

I like the idea of crowdsourcing big computations (e.g. ***@Home
<http://folding.stanford.edu/>). If you have a large problem to solve, you
can distribute bits of work to a network of people. Your program can then
run cheaply on the excess capacity of people's machines. Elm makes
distributing 'untrusted' code simple, since you can guarantee the purity of
the code being used.

Here's how it might work.
1. You have a large, parallelizable computation
2. You upload a package exposing a 'run' function that accepts and emits
JSON, along with a list of JSON records to be used as inputs.
3. The platform compiles your code
4. Users come to the site, and a scheduler presents them with a constant
stream of work for each browser tab they open.
5. You download a list of JSON results.

At this point, I'm really interested in hearing about potential use cases,
dangers, or existing work in this area I should check out.

Thanks!
Carlos