Hello,
I am learning Lisp, and am curious as to whether there is anything
like Zope in Lisp.
I have heard of UncommonWeb, but that is just a web framework, right?
Is there an OO database / web application server in Lisp, or is anyone
working on one? Since Zope is often given as a reason for Python's
popularity, it would seem an obviously good idea to have something like
that in Lisp. The "we had one decades ago" answer which usually comes
from Lisp people suggests there might be an old OO database floating
around somewhere...
Can anyone comment?
Thanks
Nick
"N.Davis" <····@le.ac.uk> writes:
> I have heard of UncommonWeb, but that is just a web framework,
> right? Is there an OO database / web application server in Lisp, or
> is anyone working on one?
There is also BKNR which as I understand it started as a persistence
framework and then evolved into a web framework as well. There is
very good documentation on the data store, but the web framework has
no documentation (at least as of approximately 6 months ago).
Unfortunately, a quick scan of the site seems to indicate that the
link to the documentation is broken. You'll probably have to contact
the owners to get the link fixed.
http://bknr.net
From: Edi Weitz
Subject: Re: Newbie - does anything like Zope exist in Lisp?
Date:
Message-ID: <uirwdkva3.fsf@agharta.de>
On Tue, 04 Oct 2005 17:27:40 +0100, "N.Davis" <····@le.ac.uk> wrote:
> Is there an OO database / web application server in Lisp, or is
> anyone working on one?
<http://fresh.homeunix.net/files/ilc02/>
See Marc Battyani's talk.
Cheers,
Edi.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
N.Davis wrote:
> Hello,
> I am learning Lisp, and am curious as to whether there is anything
> like Zope in Lisp.
Not as such, AFIAK. BKNR probably comes the closest, but having never
used Zope, i don't know what exactly it provides.
> I have heard of UncommonWeb, but that is just a web framework, right?
> Is there an OO database / web application server in Lisp, or is anyone
> working on one?
"Web Application Server" is such a poorly defined term, but you may be
looking for something like BKNR, or TBNL, or (my personal favorite) UCW
if you plan on writing web applications.
As For OO databases (another poorly defined term IMO), i'm using
cl-store (along with UCW/LoL) in my latest project and it seems to work
well. (i'm simply storing all the content as CLOS objects in a
hashtable, and i store the hashtable.) Cl-store is not really an OO
database, but rather a simple serialization library (ie No ACID,
transactions etc)
If you need more "database" type features the BKNR datastore seems
excellent in this regard, although i have never done more than play with
it. The is also cl-prevalence, which i've never actually used, but seems
more than capable.
Also, you'd be hard pressed to come up with a definition of "OO
Database" that excludes postgresql (classes, generic functions), and
clsql has an O-R mapping that has worked wonders for me. Remeber that
SQL was added to postres late in the game, the original POSTQUEL
langauge looked a little more OO-ish. One of the thing mentioned in the
paper "THE IMPLEMENTATION OF POSTGRES" is that they created a
"persistent CLOS (Common LISP Object System) on top of POSTGRES"
> Since Zope is often given as a reason for Python's
> popularity, it would seem an obviously good idea to have something like
> that in Lisp.
And here i thought python was popular because it has lispy features :)
(see: http://www.prescod.net/python/IsPythonLisp.html for a pythonista
ranting against that idea, or most anything from Paul Graham for a
Lispnik version)
> The "we had one decades ago" answer which usually comes
> from Lisp people suggests there might be an old OO database floating
> around somewhere...
Interlisp-D was supposed to have been great at this sort of thing (but
i've never played with it). In common lisp you can simply save the state
of your application as an image, or compile your live objects to a file
and LOAD the .fasl, so often a full OO database isn't really neccessary.
(see a recent thread "Writing classes to files and reading them back in"
for a few examples)
On top of that, there is the fact that lisp code is lisp data, so one
can serialize PRINT'able objects with ease and READ them back whenever
you need too.
Also, i'm sure that over the years there have been many such products
for LISP systems, as the nature of Lisp makes it almost trivial. There
are certainly a few good projects out there now.
hth.
--
Drew Crampsie
drewc at tech dot coop
"Never mind the bollocks -- here's the sexp's tools."
-- Karl A. Krueger on comp.lang.lisp
drewc wrote:
(...)
>
> As For OO databases (another poorly defined term IMO), i'm using
> cl-store (along with UCW/LoL) in my latest project and it seems to work
> well.
>
Whither Lisp-on-Lines?
Thank you all for thought-provoking replies and pointers.
BTW I am a heretic and can see virtue in both Python and Lisp. ;-) I
feel lucky to be able to earn a living writing Python not Java, but do
have dangerous thoughts like "If Zope was written in Lisp, wouldn't that
make it more powerful / flexible?"
Regards
Nick
N.Davis wrote:
> I have heard of UncommonWeb, but that is just a web framework, right?
> Is there an OO database / web application server in Lisp, or is anyone
> working on one? Since Zope is often given as a reason for Python's
> popularity, it would seem an obviously good idea to have something like
> that in Lisp.
> Can anyone comment?
It was a marketing decision. If Zope had been hosted in Lisp, then
a mere three or four good Lisp programmers could have accomplished
all the payable work appropriate for Zope. Then Zope would not have
a large enough market to earn sufficient mind share or market to be
successful.
Hosting Zope in Python was a way of guaranteeing need for a large
number of developer copies. I believe that was also the prime
motivation for the design of Java, which was accomplished by
excellent programmers who knew Lisp and who were at the time
employed by a certain company that made its money selling
hardware to support developer seats.
=====
"If anyone disagrees with anything I say, I am quite prepared not only
to retract it, but also to deny under oath that I ever said it."
-- Tom Lehrer
On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 06:20:55 GMT, "Steven M. Haflich"
<···@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>N.Davis wrote:
>
>> I have heard of UncommonWeb, but that is just a web framework, right?
>> Is there an OO database / web application server in Lisp, or is anyone
>> working on one? Since Zope is often given as a reason for Python's
>> popularity, it would seem an obviously good idea to have something like
>> that in Lisp.
>> Can anyone comment?
>
>It was a marketing decision. If Zope had been hosted in Lisp, then
>a mere three or four good Lisp programmers could have accomplished
>all the payable work appropriate for Zope
Why four?... You are underestimating the power of Lisp. One would be
absolutely enough.
A.L.
"Steven M. Haflich" <···@alum.mit.edu> writes:
> Hosting Zope in Python was a way of guaranteeing need for a large
> number of developer copies. I believe that was also the prime
> motivation for the design of Java, which was accomplished by
> excellent programmers who knew Lisp and who were at the time
> employed by a certain company that made its money selling
> hardware to support developer seats.
Another proof of it is the slowness of java: you need a powerful
sparcstation to make it run at an acceptable speed.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
Nobody can fix the economy. Nobody can be trusted with their finger
on the button. Nobody's perfect. VOTE FOR NOBODY.
From: Ulrich Hobelmann
Subject: Re: Newbie - does anything like Zope exist in Lisp?
Date:
Message-ID: <3qk4l6Ffde4gU1@individual.net>
Steven M. Haflich wrote:
> Hosting Zope in Python was a way of guaranteeing need for a large
> number of developer copies. I believe that was also the prime
> motivation for the design of Java, which was accomplished by
> excellent programmers who knew Lisp and who were at the time
> employed by a certain company that made its money selling
> hardware to support developer seats.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
incompetence."
I've heard that James Gosling was a former Lisper, but having read a
couple of interviews with him, it seems he seriously likes his language
and the design decisions made. Ok, the word "incompetence" is not mine,
but the quotations', so let's call it carelessness instead.
OTOH, maybe some Sun commitee had its hands in it. Look at how MS
Research does lots of really cool stuff, and yet Mr Hejlsberg produced
the incredible C# for mainstream consumption.
--
We're glad that graduates already know Java,
so we only have to teach them how to program.
somewhere in a German company
(credit to M. Felleisen and M. Sperber)