RE: [Axiom-developer] doyen

[Page, Bill]

On Monday, November 14, 2005 8:45 AM Tim Daly wrote:
> 
> > Subject: lisp webserver
> > From: "Tim Daly Jr." <address@hidden>
> > To: address@hidden
> > Content-Type: text/plain
> > Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 11:29:43 +0100
> > 
> > If you want to bolt Lisp onto a webserver, the sweet spot 
> > of simple and nice is probably tbnl and mod_lisp:
> > <http://www.weitz.de/tbnl/>. Nothing fancy, but it all works
> > well.

Kai Kaminshi used Araneida for AxiomUI instead of Apache+mod_lisp
because I think he wanted an all lisp solution for desktop use.
Must people don't run Apache on their desktop configurations.
Perhaps for performance reasons on a network mod_lisp might be
preferred although from what I hear Araneida is supposed to be
pretty good. Is any other reason why Tim Daly Jr. recommends an
Apache solution?

As far as I know Kai did not used 'tbnl' in AxiomUI but since it
can act as a webserver without Apache maybe it would also have been
a suitable tool for AxiomUI. It is not clear to me what 'tbnl'
really adds to the mix if you have already gone to the trouble to
use Araneida except perhaps session management - and that is only
really of interest if you on the web, not for desktop use.

> > 
> > The website for finding Lisp software is <http://www.cliki.net/>.
> > 

But cliki itself seems like a fairly neat and tidy wiki implemented
in lisp. If someone was motivated to add LaTeX and Axiom integration
to cliki then that might be quite interesting.

Since http://www.cliki.net lists Maxima as a common lisp application
and GCL as a common lisp implementation and Axiom runs on GCL it
makes sense that cliki.net should also include Axiom, so I have just
added it. If you get a chance, you might want to review what I wrote.

> > I run my Lisp code in SBCL: <http://www.sbcl.org>.  It supports
> > the full standard
(<http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/>),
> > does native code compilation, has multithreading, two different 
> > profilers, comes with libraries for system definition (asdf),
> > fetching and installing packages and their dependencies
> > (asdf-install), sockets, posix functions, a foreign function
> > interface, yadda yadda yadda...
> >

Wouldn't it be nice (hint, hint :) if someone decided to do an
SBCL port of Axiom?

I believe Kai chose clisp for AxiomUI because in principle it is
standards compliant and is supposed to run easily on Windows,
however apparently that does not apply to all lisp applications
written in clisp since we still have not successfully installed
AxiomUI on Windows. The problem seems to have something do with
differences in path names between Linux and Windows.
 
> > So in my world, you would keep the client functionality (the stuff
> > in the web browser) relatively straightforward, and do all the magic
> > in your Lisp webserver.  Nobody likes programming in a web browser
> > anyway.
> > 
> > (it's okay to quote this email...)
> > --
> > -Tim
> 
> i got this response to the doyen questions. if i understand
> the architecture correctly this solves both the questions of 
> "drag and drop" and "embedded command window".

I don't see how it solves either of these questions. If I am
wrong I would be glad if you could explain it to me.

> 
> "drag and drop" works since the browser, the webserver, and 
> lisp are all running on the same machine.

??? Seems to me there is a lot more to it than that! :(

> thus anything the browser asks for (such as notangle-compile-load,
> noweave-latex-xdvi can be done by a background lisp process.

That part is no problem in any case. See how it is done in
AxiomUI for instance. But it can also be done directly from
the browser in javascript - see how Bob McElrath did this for
his TiddlyWiki interface for Axiom. In that case there is
nothing to install except the browser, but it doesn't use AJAX
(yet).

> 
> "embedded command window" is also possible. it appears that 
> franz already offers this ability with a lisp prompt in a
> window. they appear to be using a java applet which opens a
> tcp connection to the host-based lisp process and emulates a
> terminal.

Very "old tech"... I don't see why you think this is relevant.

> 
> so doyen seems much more feasible at this point. i'm going to 
> prototype this setup and, if i can make it work, merge it onto
> the doyencd project at sourceforge.
> 

If you need/want any help configuring Apache on axiom-developer.org
with mod_lisp I would be glad to help although I doubt that I will
be much inclined to start developing web applications in lisp any
time soon. Compared to Zope (which some people seem to think is
pretty complicated) all this lisp-based web stuff seems completely
over the top to me... ;)

Regards,
Bill Page.