Hello,
I'm planing to program a good web-based Discussion Forum. So far, all
our development has been on Java, and our web server is
Tomcat(Servlets + JSP). I also found some forums on sourceforge they
are already done, and in Java. I didn't find any forumsoftware done in
Lisp so far.
But...I want to give Lisp a chance in spite of this.
1. First of all, is there any Lisp forum software already done?
2. How can it be integrated to our server without too much pain? The
ideal would be it to integrate well with Java. If this is the case it
should handle multiple threads well(several users accessing at the
same time).
Our server OS is BSD.
Is this feasible at all or should I better stick to Java?
Thanks for any help.
·········@gmx.net (thelifter) wrote in message news:<····························@posting.google.com>...
Please respond
From: Johannes Grødem
Subject: Re: Need: Good Internet Forum software in Lisp to run on a Servlet server.
Date:
Message-ID: <lz1y5xwaeu.fsf@unity.copyleft.no>
* ·········@gmx.net (thelifter):
> 2. How can it be integrated to our server without too much pain?
What do you mean by this?
> The ideal would be it to integrate well with Java.
I don't understand this either. Do you want to call Java-functions
from Lisp? Do you want to embed Lisp in Java? Or something entirely
different? You have to be more specific.
> If this is the case it should handle multiple threads well
You shouldn't need multithreads-support for this, but yes, some
(most?) Lisps support it. Allegro CL, Xanalys CL and Scieneer CL, for
example. CMUCL supports cooperative threads. (On x86 only, I think.)
Don't know about OpenMCL.
> Our server OS is BSD.
I know Allegro runs on FreeBSD, and CMUCL and SBCL. CLISP too.
Probably others. You might be able to run the Linux-version if
there isn't a native BSD-version. (IIRC, this may not always work due
to some difference in signal-handling behaviour.)
> Is this feasible at all [...]?
Sure.
I'm assuming you know about CLiki, by the way. If not, check out:
http://ww.telent.net/cliki/
--
Johannes Gr�dem <OpenPGP: 5055654C>
"Johannes Gr�dem <······@ifi.uio.no> wrote in message news:<··············@unity.copyleft.no>...
> * ·········@gmx.net (thelifter):
>
> > 2. How can it be integrated to our server without too much pain?
>
> What do you mean by this?
Well, it will be a servlet server, meaning it runs Java as its main
language. This means also, that the Lisp code will be called from
Java, and it will have to return its result to Java also.
>
> > The ideal would be it to integrate well with Java.
>
> I don't understand this either. Do you want to call Java-functions
> from Lisp? Do you want to embed Lisp in Java? Or something entirely
> different? You have to be more specific.
I will call the Lisp from Java.
>
> > If this is the case it should handle multiple threads well
>
> You shouldn't need multithreads-support for this, but yes, some
> (most?) Lisps support it. Allegro CL, Xanalys CL and Scieneer CL, for
> example. CMUCL supports cooperative threads. (On x86 only, I think.)
> Don't know about OpenMCL.
Yes, I need multithreads. Because this will be an internet forum
software several users can be accessing it at the same time. So this
means that when one user calls the function postNewMessage(...)
another user can call the same function before the first call has
returned. Java already has threads support and since Java code will be
calling the Lisp code, the Lisp code needs to support this also.
>
> > Our server OS is BSD.
>
> I know Allegro runs on FreeBSD, and CMUCL and SBCL. CLISP too.
> Probably others. You might be able to run the Linux-version if
> there isn't a native BSD-version. (IIRC, this may not always work due
> to some difference in signal-handling behaviour.)
>
> > Is this feasible at all [...]?
>
> Sure.
>
> I'm assuming you know about CLiki, by the way. If not, check out:
> http://ww.telent.net/cliki/
I took a look at that site. Didn't find much stuff, or maybe I didn't
look right. AFAIK it doesn't have any Forum software. OTOH you find
lots of Forum software for Java and PHP. There you see how it is
important for a language to be popular...even if it is a shitty
language. I would rather be programming in Lisp, but...
Thanks for reading this!
From: Simon Andr�s
Subject: Re: Need: Good Internet Forum software in Lisp to run on a Servlet server.
Date:
Message-ID: <vcdr8dpywp7.fsf@tarski.math.bme.hu>
·········@gmx.net (thelifter) writes:
> > I'm assuming you know about CLiki, by the way. If not, check out:
> > http://ww.telent.net/cliki/
>
> I took a look at that site. Didn't find much stuff, or maybe I
> didn't
> look right. AFAIK it doesn't have any Forum software. OTOH you find
Cliki _is_ forum software, among other things, I believe. But see
below for disclaimers.
> lots of Forum software for Java and PHP. There you see how it is
> important for a language to be popular...even if it is a shitty
> language. I would rather be programming in Lisp, but...
Have you considered writing your own `forum software'? I'm not
absolutely sure about what FS is supposed to mean, but the way I
imagine it is that you put up a form with a text area, the user
submits his/her message and you store it in a db and display it
somewhere from there. This is very easy with all of the CL web
servers.
Andras
From: Daniel Barlow
Subject: Re: Need: Good Internet Forum software in Lisp to run on a Servlet server.
Date:
Message-ID: <87isz1kte9.fsf@noetbook.telent.net>
·········@gmx.net (thelifter) writes:
>> lots of Forum software for Java and PHP. There you see how it is
>> important for a language to be popular...even if it is a shitty
>> language. I would rather be programming in Lisp, but...
which really, reads more like he's looking for an excuse not to use
Lisp than he is looking for help solving an actual problem. But Simon
Andras generously offered some advice anyway
······@math.bme.hu (Simon Andr�s) writes:
> Cliki _is_ forum software, among other things, I believe. But see
> below for disclaimers.
For some definition of "forum software", I suppose it is. Another
possibility would be to use a mailing list (many people prefer
real email to the substandard user interfaces that web forms typically
impose) and something like the cl-http mail archiving software to
present a web-based view to the people who for whatever reason don't
want to deal with more mail.
> Have you considered writing your own `forum software'? I'm not
> absolutely sure about what FS is supposed to mean, but the way I
> imagine it is that you put up a form with a text area, the user
> submits his/her message and you store it in a db and display it
> somewhere from there. This is very easy with all of the CL web
> servers.
And given the adolescent attitudes, internecine struggle, and
shockingly poor standard of coding in most of the freely available
"forum software" for other languages, you'd probably be able to
implement this in CL in less time than it'd take to do a reasonable
security audit of anything you could find on the net in some other
language. Slash, any of the phpnuke/postnuke/thatware branches,
wwwboard (or anything else from Matt's Script Archive) - I mostly only
even /hear/ about this stuff when I see security advisories or the
developers are throwing their toys at each other again.
-dan
--
http://ww.telent.net/cliki/ - Link farm for free CL-on-Unix resources
From: Tagore Smith
Subject: Re: Need: Good Internet Forum software in Lisp to run on a Servlet server.
Date:
Message-ID: <3DD31A9F.5010800@tagoresmith.com>
thelifter wrote:
> Well, it will be a servlet server, meaning it runs Java as its main
> language. This means also, that the Lisp code will be called from
> Java, and it will have to return its result to Java also.
One possibility is Kawa. It's a scheme, not a CL, but it targets the
JVM, and integrates well with Java. You can generate Servlets with it.
There is a code-in-html language for it called BRL that is about as nice
as code-in-html languages get, and does in fact allow you to segregate
the heavy lifting from the html. I would think that it would be fairly
easy to write some forum software on top of it. If you decide to go down
that road, c.l.s is the right place to ask about it.
> Yes, I need multithreads. Because this will be an internet forum
> software several users can be accessing it at the same time. So this
> means that when one user calls the function postNewMessage(...)
> another user can call the same function before the first call has
> returned. Java already has threads support and since Java code will be
> calling the Lisp code, the Lisp code needs to support this also.
>
You don't necessarily need threading to do this. If your application is
IO bound, asynchronous IO would probably work very well. Failing that
you can either use a cgi-style model, where you fork a new shell for
each request, or you can keep a pool of Lisp processes listening for
requests. If you take these approaches you might want to choose a fairly
lightweight CL if you anticipate heavy traffic. perl has only recently
developed stable threads (or at least that is my understanding- I'm not
a Perl expert), but it has been used for a lot of web applications.
> I took a look at that site. Didn't find much stuff, or maybe I didn't
> look right. AFAIK it doesn't have any Forum software. OTOH you find
> lots of Forum software for Java and PHP. There you see how it is
> important for a language to be popular...even if it is a shitty
> language. I would rather be programming in Lisp, but...
I assume that you're looking for something along the lines of
UltimateBB, etc. I've never heard of anything like this implemented in
CL, and from the lack of responses here I think it's a pretty safe bet
that it doesn't exist. If you're looking for something that is already
written you might do best to grab someone elses Servlet. If you're
looking for an interesting Lisp project, there is no real bar to writing
it yourself in Lisp.
Tagore Smith