In the article about Orbitz and ITA Software,
http://www.paulgraham.com/carl.html
the author says "Our web site page generation code is also
largely written in Common Lisp, though there's also fair bit
of Java there."
Does anyone know or could anyone speculate on what part is
in Java and why?
In general, for server-based applications (presumably meaning
an application server tasked by a web server such as Apache), in
what situations or for what functions might it be better to use
Java instead of Lisp?
Is the answer of the form, "It might be better to
use Java so that you can avail of library X, because there is
no library X in Lisp yet or it isn't as well developed."?
If so, what are the possible values of X at this time?
··········@yahoo.com (Pratibha) writes:
> In the article about Orbitz and ITA Software,
> http://www.paulgraham.com/carl.html
> the author says "Our web site page generation code is also
> largely written in Common Lisp, though there's also fair bit
> of Java there."
>
> Does anyone know or could anyone speculate on what part is
> in Java and why?
>
> In general, for server-based applications (presumably meaning
> an application server tasked by a web server such as Apache), in
> what situations or for what functions might it be better to use
> Java instead of Lisp?
I can tell you when I choose Java on the server side. If I'm
developing a client and server in tandem, the client is in Java, and
there are opportunities for significant amounts of shared code between
the two; or, I'm leaving a trail of code behind me that other people
will have to maintain, and I don't know who they are. It's reasonable
to expect J. Random Hacker to be able to modify reasonable Java code,
but (unfortunately) not Lisp.
The first case gets bumped in Java's direction because of the benefits
of avoiding lots of duplicate code. The second, to keep positive
references, as opposed to a work history of people who hate me because
I'm the only one they can find who can maintain my work. At least
when leaving code for J. Random Hacker to maintain, I can
machine-generate lots of it.
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