Here's an overview of different approaches: http://bc.tech.coop/blog/041017.html And here's a list of different web server resources: http://www.cl-user.net/asp/tags/web-servers
Lisp for web apps? Tell me more.. (seriously)
21–30 of 31 posts
Re: Lisp for web apps? Tell me more.. (seriously)
#22if you're thinking of developing a web app in lisp but haven't looked at python or ruby, you might consider them -- remember, it's not just the raw language but also the surrounding infrastructure, and python (django, turbogears) and ruby (rails) have arguably much more developed frameworks, and also arguably have most of the interesting language features that would draw you to lisp in the first place. the point is t…
Most people say that you shouldn't use lisp because it doesn't have libraries. Well they are only half right. You shouldn't use lisp, because most lisp libraries have very little documentation. Lisp has a lot of libraries. You have to be willing to read code (i.e. examples/tests) to figure out how to use them. http://www.cliki.net/Library Assuming that the most precious commodity is development time. I'd say rails/dj…
Re: Lisp for web apps? Tell me more.. (seriously)
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scheme is a dialect of Lisp.
I know - what benefits do you get from Scheme over CL?
Re: Lisp for web apps? Tell me more.. (seriously)
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know - what benefits do you get from Scheme over CL?
I can't speak for the GP, but since it has been 11 hours and he haven't answered yet I'll give you my answer: it's mostly a matter of taste, or sometimes if there is a particular library/app/framework for one which you'd like to use.
Re: Lisp for web apps? Tell me more.. (seriously)
#25There's also this resource which is very much for beginners but if you're just starting to find out all about using Lisp to do web development this might be a good read: http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-web-programming-with-allegroserve.html
Another thing I was looking for when I last evaluated LISP was an OR-mapping library. I can't go back to executing SQL statements from within my code - that is also so 90ies. I think there is one project underway to provide OR-mapping for LISP, but I am not sure if it was ready for prime time yet.
Re: Lisp for web apps? Tell me more.. (seriously)
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people say that you shouldn't use lisp because it doesn't have libraries. Well they are only half right. You shouldn't use lisp, because most lisp libraries have very little documentation. Lisp has a lot of libraries. You have to be willing to read code (i.e. examples/tests) to figure out how to use them. http://www.cliki.net/Library Assuming that the most precious commodity is development time. I'd say rails/dj…
Why is lisp so sparsely documented?
Re: Lisp for web apps? Tell me more.. (seriously)
#27There's also this resource which is very much for beginners but if you're just starting to find out all about using Lisp to do web development this might be a good read: http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-web-programming-with-allegroserve.html
Thank you for the link. I used to code in Scheme and enjoyed it very much, it would be great to get back into LISP one of these days. However, whenever I see HTML generated from within the code, as it is in that tutorial, it just feels like it is 10 years behind the state of the art. I think it is much better to use some kind of HTML templates (but maybe I am wrong?). Another thing I was looking for when I last evalu…
Re: Lisp for web apps? Tell me more.. (seriously)
#28It's scheme, not CL, but don't forget HOP http://hop.inria.fr/ and whatever the PLT people have in store http://www.plt-scheme.org/
I apologize for such a late answer. I'm always fighting with email. I'm definitively not good at it because I'm not able to answer at a decent pace.
Hi Manuel. I've just been playing with Hop. Well done. It's just beautiful. A couple of questions about it: first, the bigloo web server- is this completely necessary? I guess one of 4 things would need to happen for hop to be totally ideal: Bigloo implements light-weight threads Gambit-scheme style so that it can have erlang-like load capacity ( http://www.sics.se/~joe/apachevsyaws.html ) (most preferable option, IMO, though I have no idea what your feelings are here. To me this would make bigloo light-years ahead of all other scheme imps.) I have tried several things concerning the multi-threading. You can read our FairThreads proposal (http://www.inria.fr/mimosa/Manuel.Serrano). When I did this study I though that FairThreads was a decent solution. Now that's no longer clear to me. Hop does not use Fair threads but Posix like threads. I'm quite aware of all the troubles that come with this kind of threads. I have not considered an Erlang-like solution yet but that's something I could envision.
Get hop to work with a gambit-scheme server instead of bigloo (where would i start with this? can you point me to relevant points in the code?) No, I think that you cannot. Hop is really not a portable Scheme program. It extensively relies on Bigloo features. I'm afraid that you will have to rewrite entirely. It's not a huge program but it is not that small either. The problem is that it uses a lot of libraries that you would have to re-implement too. All in all it's about 40.000 lines of Scheme code. I don't really recommend to try to re-implement that (except if you are very brave ;-)
Get hop to work with mod_lisp (less preferable, IMO) No. I don't think that a solution too. Hop needs to be running permanently. That is two successive requests must be handled in the same execution environment (i.e., the first request may set a global variable that is read by the second request). Hence, even if you want to use Apache you will be forced to have a server running somewhere and you will have to establish a communication between Apache and that server. Why not directly using Hop as a server?
Second item is the overall latency and possible redundancy... actually, I don't know how to phrase the problem- but it boils down to this, I counted over 27 distinct "connecting to server" cycles when you click on the "weblets" tab of the Hop Home page. It took quite a while re-establishing the connection to the server 27 times. Are there thoughts on overcoming this? Not really but... First, the Hop server supports keep-alive connections. This should help. Then, honestly, I have hoped to find time to optimize the server for months. I have not found that time yet but I think that I will have it around the end of Spring. At that moment, I will study the problem you are mentioning.
However, I'm using Hop on a daily basis. Even more, in order to push it to its limits, I'm using it as my regular proxy. That is all my HTTP connections, on all my machines, go through a Hop proxy/server. The performance are acceptable. That is, I'm not annoyed by an important slow down due to Hop.
Thanks again!! You are welcome. Thanks for the encouragements.
-- Manuel
Re: Lisp for web apps? Tell me more.. (seriously)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't speak for the GP, but since it has been 11 hours and he haven't answered yet I'll give you my answer: it's mostly a matter of taste, or sometimes if there is a particular library/app/framework for one which you'd like to use.
I would also add that at least in my experience the Scheme community was much friendlier the the Common Lisp one. They don't particularly like novices over there and it is quite easy to get flamed if you're not careful enough...
Re: Lisp for web apps? Tell me more.. (seriously)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people say that you shouldn't use lisp because it doesn't have libraries. Well they are only half right. You shouldn't use lisp, because most lisp libraries have very little documentation. Lisp has a lot of libraries. You have to be willing to read code (i.e. examples/tests) to figure out how to use them. http://www.cliki.net/Library Assuming that the most precious commodity is development time. I'd say rails/dj…
Why is lisp so sparsely documented?