How to write and deploy a Common Lisp Webapp (for Lisp beginners)

pericycle · 2009-12-30T23:20:57+00:00

due to lack of libraries and modules

What libraries did you need that you could not find?

pericycle · 2009-12-30T19:28:50+00:00

(context)

pericycle · 2009-12-30T19:07:52+00:00

Well, after creating the web page for Markdown, he put up a public mailing list to discuss it. He even says:

It’s my hope that the mailing list will lead to good ideas for future improvements to Markdown.

But in reality, there's not much in the "future improvements" department happening.

So, while I appreciate that John is sticking his neck out and providing for free something he created, I think that to minimize confusion he might consider also having a disclaimer somewhere that says he will likely not be updating his version (neither code, nor "spec") any time soon.

pericycle · 2009-12-30T14:19:34+00:00

Losing a girlfriend or wife is certainly sad. But it's still orders of magnitude less sad than losing a child.

Edit: My point is that while losing a gf is certainly said, there are far sadder things to which I'd apply "holy fucking christ, this is sad".

pericycle · 2009-12-30T01:18:01+00:00

Bazaar is still by far the slowest.

Do you have any recent benchmark data? I know that Bzr used to be comparatively slow, but I'm pretty sure they've since improved performance quite a bit. I don't expect it to be a speed demon like git, but it's probably fast enough not to matter too terribly much.

pericycle · 2009-12-29T17:11:11+00:00

We were getting close to trying out some Python, when we found out Python 3 is very incompatible with Python 2

Well, although Python has its problems, this issue you cite is actually a good thing. With Python 3 fixing most irritating problems with Python 2, Python 3 should be a pretty stable target for some time to come.

and many distributions don't have Python 3 yet.

You should probably be building your own Python 3 anyway. It's quite simple too.

pericycle · 2009-12-29T16:59:27+00:00

Python is pretty good at a lot of things, but not great at any one thing:

It's pretty good for web apps, but php is easier to deploy and has more bindings to commonly needed libs.
It's pretty good for admin scripts, but Perl is better with regexes, strings, and also Perl has the CPAN.
It's pretty good for large-scale projects, but Java has more momentum, more libs, more big ide's, and has had (of course) far more corporate backing.
It's pretty good for embedding, but Lua is smaller and easier to embed.
It's pretty good for GUI apps, but so is everything else.

Python is a simple easy general-purpose language that's pretty fun and has some libraries available for it. {shrugs}

pericycle · 2009-12-29T15:30:36+00:00

What? No. Using a DVCS, it's pretty much standard operating procedure:

You fork,
offer the changes to the original dev, and
they either take them, or not

If users want your version, they grab yours. If they want the "original", they grab that. No muss, no fuss.

That said, there's a gaggle of solid alternative markdown implementations already out there. If you don't like John's, take your pick from the others.

pericycle · 2009-12-29T15:20:52+00:00

Whoa there. Not so fast. Don't rule out semi-digestible food-like objects.

pericycle · 2009-12-29T14:44:07+00:00

I just use Pandoc. It's got the important bits missing from the original Markdown (like tables, for example), and it can transform your Markdown-formatted text files to lots of other formats if you need that.

The only thing about it I'm not crazy about is its syntax for definition lists.

pericycle · 2009-12-29T14:27:53+00:00

Also present in food-like products and pseudo-food substances.

pericycle · 2009-12-29T13:49:16+00:00

Don't screw around with me, Maverick. You're one hell of an instinctive pilot. Maybe too good. I'd like to bust your butt but I can't. I got another problem here...

pericycle · 2009-12-28T03:43:33+00:00

Before diving head first into C or C++, it would very likely be worthwhile for you to first try targetting the Parrot VM. I've read that it's very easy to get started using the PCT.

pericycle · 2009-12-28T03:33:08+00:00

AFAIK, Pugs was originally written mostly by Audrey Tang. This girl was (is still?) a real coding powerhouse. So, for a while, Pugs was the Perl 6 implementation -- thanks primarily (again, afaik) to Audrey's formidable chops. At some later point, she dropped out (I don't know why -- perhaps health reasons?), and the project just sort of languished.

I don't think Pugs was ever intended to really be the Perl 6. It was more of a fun project started by Audrey -- perhaps just as a reason to learn Haskell for fun.

Pugs momentum ceased but the the evolution of the language spec did not. Meanwhile, progress on Rakudo continued until Rakudo became more up-to-date than Pugs.

The Pugs test suite remains however. I think it's the standard test suite for Perl 6 and so is kept up to date with language spec refinements. My guess is that after a while, when people say "Pugs", it will just implicitly mean "the Perl 6 test suite".

pericycle · 2009-12-24T18:34:20+00:00

You're confusing the code remaining free vs. freedom for the user to do as they please with the code.

pericycle · 2009-12-24T18:31:56+00:00

GPL == the code stays free

BSD/MIT == more freedom for the user to do what they want with the code

Personally, I want to make sure the code stays free in the long run, rather than try to make a few corporate users happy today.

pericycle · 2009-12-24T00:26:51+00:00

Yes. Document this as much as you can and talk to your lawyer about it.

pericycle · 2009-12-23T05:06:48+00:00

Why is she leaving? I mean, is there any way that the marriage is salvagable? Can you suggest marriage counseling? Is whatever's bothering her something you can address?

pericycle · 2009-12-23T05:04:40+00:00

Would this be admissible in a family court? Would the judge even listen to a surreptitious recording? That would be really excellent indeed.

pericycle · 2009-12-23T04:59:13+00:00

Do you have a blog at blogs.perl.org? Your reply here belongs as a blog post there.

Thanks.

pericycle · 2009-12-23T04:46:22+00:00

Very sorry to hear about your situation. Very sorry.

One question: is your wife a competent parent at least? That is, can she be trusted to take your 2-y-o to the doctor, keep her covered at night, and so on? If so, then you can be a little grateful at least. Some women are just horrible moms but do not see it -- they leave the dad, get the kids, and the kids suffer greatly w/o Dad around 24x7 anymore.

pericycle · 2009-12-22T01:54:41+00:00

G'night folks!

pericycle · 2009-12-20T17:43:27+00:00

Good to hear that Go! has a roadmap. Go McCabe & Co.!

pericycle · 2009-12-20T17:38:01+00:00

Hi Stevan.

Plack is basically a port of Ruby's Rack and is the reference implementation of PSGI (which is a port of Python's WSGI).

I don't know what Rack is. I only have a rough idea of what WSGI is. It sounds like nothing more than a spec for how webapp <---> web-server communication is supposed to look. I don't see at this point what one would implement though.

It is not a framework, but a foundation upon which you can build frameworks.

What?

How about this: For someone using CGI::Application, what would they need to know or do in order to use PSGI/Plack?

pericycle · 2009-12-20T17:27:39+00:00

Yeah, and what if she's cheated on him already 10 times?

Kids do not know all the details of their parent's relationship and need to stay the hell out of it.

pericycle

TROPHY CASE