Show HN: Common Lisp running natively over WebAssembly for the first time

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Re: Show HN: Common Lisp running natively over WebAssembly for the first time

#71

Post by dtagames » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 6:26 PM UTC

lobstrosity420 wrote: post #27

dtagames wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true! Also, there are no decent UI frameworks for Lisp, so it's impossible to build a full stack app that looks good in a modern browser without adding a TS or JS web component layer. And... There's no modern IDE for Lisp. I think this aspect of ignoring UIs and aesthetics has seriously held back CL.

> Also, there are no decent UI frameworks for Lisp How about CLOG and cl-cffi-gtk?

Ok, thank you for those references I had not seen. CLOG looks like it creates the UI separately and essentially "streams" it to you over a websocket. While novel, that introduces it own problems. Perhaps this why there aren't any working examples that I could find?

The CL library you linked is for connection to GTK, a desktop UI scheme. So, while interesting, that doesn't really help someone who is trying to develop a browser-native app, which is where the world has gone at the moment.

I think Lisp got left behind on the journey, and I think this UI problem is one of the top reasons, the other one being terrible-non-IDE-like-substances.

Re: Show HN: Common Lisp running natively over WebAssembly for the first time

#72

Post by lobstrosity420 » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

dtagames wrote: post #71

lobstrosity420 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, there are no decent UI frameworks for Lisp How about CLOG and cl-cffi-gtk?

Ok, thank you for those references I had not seen. CLOG looks like it creates the UI separately and essentially "streams" it to you over a websocket. While novel, that introduces it own problems. Perhaps this why there aren't any working examples that I could find? The CL library you linked is for connection to GTK, a desktop UI scheme. So, while interesting, that doesn't really help someone who is trying to develop…

The CLOG approach is not that novel. It's the same tech that Laravel Livewire, Rails Hotwire and Phoenix Liveview are pioneering. I mentioned GTK because your original comment hadn't mentioned you needed browser-native functionality specifically. For that, you would be well served with CLOG or you can try something like HTMX with a CL backend that serves just HTML.

I wouldn't go as far as to say CL got left behind in the journey, it's still very much alive. But if you want to go with something with more mainstream appeal (not a bad want IMO) there's always Clojure.

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