Lisp for web application development

3 points by aivijay 14 years ago | 6 comments

I am trying to figure out to know why would Lisp make the difference in a web application development when compared to ROR, Php frameworks, Python etc. I had been trying to figure out a way along with making my mind to start using lisp completely on one of my projects. I am wondering if people could share their experiences in developing web apps using lisp.

I know there are refs on alegro and other links on the web which point out lisp based applications. I also have come across where pointers point out to viaweb being developed in lisp and that being migrated away from lisp. Similarly reddit development starting with lisp and then moving off to python etc. Why doesnt lisp perform as web application programming language though it has a whole bunch of programming features better than other languages?

I also have tried my hands on a mix of some of the lisp based libs/frameworks (hunchentoot, weblocks, cl-who, clsql, postmodern and others) which help to develop web apps in the proces of figuring a stable mix of lisp based components to develop the web app.

Please share your experiences with web app development with lisp which are running in production environment currently and not those just being replaced or migrated to someother language (eg viaweb which should be now 10 years old, or reddit even).

pavelludiq 14 years ago |

I recently began working on a web app in common lisp(hunchentoot, restas, postmodern). I chose lisp because:

* I love lisp. I admit that as long as i can't find a reason NOT to use it, i will.

* Me and my partner still don't know exactly what we want to do. We have a few ideas, but both of us are pretty inexperienced, both technically and business wise. Common lisp is excellent for experimentation and many people have had success using it to fill in the gaps in their knowledge about a certain domain. My next couple of weeks will consist of just building "stuff".

* I don't understand what other advantage does a full stack framework have, except that it made a bunch of choices for you(ORM,template engine, structure of your program). If I were to write an app in python, i might be tempted to use something like flask(or some other "micro-framework"). I like the idea of hooking together different libraries, rather than filling in the blanks of a full stack framework.

Basically I've found no reason not to use lisp, if you know it. Don't let the reddit story scare you, things have changed TREMENDOUSLY in the past several years.

Now there are a lot of common lisp success stories, i made the time to search for them(I'm not about to invest my entire summer in something without learning from others first :D). Check out mahmud's comments here on HN, for some of his experience, to cite just one example. Search, don't just ask. This this thread is mostly identical to at least 3 others I read in the past week while reading old threads about lisp and web development.

Another excellent lisp is clojure, and people have been using it for web apps to great success as well. I chose common lisp over it, because I prefer multi-paradigm languages over ones with stronger accents(whether its OOP or FP). But clojure is still my second favorite language, and if you're into FP, check it out.

whalliburton 14 years ago |

I'm killing it with lisp for web at the moment. A personal fork of weblocks that allows for some fast and slick application development. Widgets all the way down. Launching real soon now.

aivijay 14 years ago |

Pavel: I have tried to search and have read a whole bunch of things by searching online and after that only am trying to ask what I am asking. Thanks for your response. By the way, what have you worked on which uses lisp extensively and a real world production application.

Thanks for your pointer though.

pavelludiq 14 years ago | |

Nothing in production. I've build a couple of clojure and common lisp toy apps, and a few 2D games in common lisp with lispbuilder-sdl(and like any other python programmer, I've build a blog in Django :D). This is my first serious attempt at a commercial system, since I'm still in school and have limited time.

p.s. try http://www.hnsearch.com/

aivijay 14 years ago |

The heading is "Lisp for web application development". Sorry. I couldn't find a way to edit it though.

aivijay 14 years ago |

Hoping to see your weblocks fork soon and see how things go with that.