--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 000
+title: Common Lisp WWWism summary
+date: October 1, 2019
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+tags: tmsr, tech
+---
+
+This post is part of a series on [Common Lisp WWWism][cl-www], more
+specifically a summary of what's been discussed so far and some
+conclusions. Maybe there isn't much to be said about these "summary"
+posts, but at least in this particular case I believe a synthetic view
+of what's been said so far oughta clear up future decisions on the
+subject. Oh, and this will be my last post on this, for a while at
+least.
+
+Let's begin by outright enumerating everything I've written so far on
+CL WWWistics:
+
+* [CL-WHO genesis][cl-who-i]
+* [A review of Hunchentoot's code history][hunchentoot-history]
+* [CL-WHO demo: The Coad Pit][cl-who-ii]
+* [Notes on Hunchentoot architecture][hunchentoot-ii]
+* [Hunchentoot: further architectural notes; and usage examples][hunchentoot-iii]
+* [Hunchentoot: acceptor code review][hunchentoot-iv]
+* [Hunchentoot: taskmaster code review][hunchentoot-v]
+* [Hunchentoot: requests and replies [a]][hunchentoot-via]
+* [Hunchentoot: requests and replies [b]][hunchentoot-vib]
+* [Hunchentoot genesis][hunchentoot-genesis]
+
+There's also [tons][logz-hunchen] of [lines][logz-cl-who] in the logs
+about all this, you're more than welcome to dig them out and let them
+enlighten you on the matter.
+
+Notice that there's about a couple of items discussed in all these blog
+posts: the HTML generation language known as CL-WHO and the Hunchentoot
+web server. Together they form something very similar to Apache and PHP,
+although CL-WHO isn't a PHP, while Hunchentoot isn't *exactly* an
+Apache.
+
+More precisely, Hunchentoot is a sort of proto-Apache along with a sort
+of mod\_lisp, in that it provides [the basic tools][logz-1934007] one
+needs to make a dynamic web site: the TCP stuff, "virtual host"
+configuration, per-URL dispatching[^1]; and some of what PHP itself
+implements, namely GET/POST handling, plugged into a language for
+general-purpose processing and automation, namely Common Lisp. Other
+than that, Hunchentoot says absolutely nothing about what or how content
+is generated: those basic tools are used to serve stuff, not specify the
+stuff itself; it's the user's business *what* (Common Lisp) primitives
+he or she uses to generate their web pages.
+
+Now, this Hunchentoot, while separating this from that so neatly and
+generally being [a pleasure to work with][hunchentoot-example], comes
+with some very big problems. Even if we left alone the usual CL-on-Unix
+[retardation][logz-1934037] and the HTTP-in-CL
+[string munging][hunchentoot-string] crap, its worker model
+[is frail][hunchentoot-threading]. Fast, yes, but the thing hasn't been
+tested on heavy workloads, so we don't know what happens when two
+thousand connections come in simultaneously; the amusing part being that
+yes, perhaps I should have tested this before pointing fingers at the
+thing, but as it is, I have no heavy workloads to test it on!
+
+Other than that, there is no "Hunchentoot versus Apache" contest to
+speak of, no matter how you'd choose to compare them. And if I set out
+to write a Common Lisp web server from scratch, given my experience so
+far, I'm not sure I'd do a much better job, at least not unless I spent
+a year or so (though I'm afraid this could easily turn into "a decade or
+so") reviewing this in more depth. And so, the question comes, is this
+really worth doing [under the circumstances][problems]?
+
+As for CL-WHO: it's an honest tool for HTML generation, light-years
+ahead of PHP's templating, since it's the exactly proper abstraction
+level to work at[^2]. Maybe this doesn't mean much, but I'm quite proud
+of the thing, since it's helped me to write a basic blog scaffolding
+(this blog) and a [code referencer][coad] without much effort, and all
+this stuff just works the way I'd intended it to. So given the
+Republican paradigm of HTML generation [via][logz-1934283]
+[IRC bots][logz-1934605], I'm supposing there's still a place for it
+somewhere near the problems I was initially trying to solve.
+
+Then there's the CL-on-PC thread that I'd rather not resurrect: maybe
+there's a Lisp to run all this stuff in, but this isn't it?
+
+Then there's the political aspect. Consider: at some point in the '90s,
+some dudes wrote a web server and some other dudes pulled a HTML
+templating language out of their asses -- meaning, they never even
+specified the thing, because why the fuck, right? Either way, I guess
+many man-centuries were put into making these two pieces work properly,
+and so this is how today we have the A and P in LAMP. As for the other
+side of the comparison: in 2000-something, some dudes set out to write
+an Apache -- in Lisp. Which was great, except nobody, save for its
+authors maybe, used it; so if the thing implodes under its own weight, I
+would also have to foot the bill for these guys not being able to steal
+WWWism from those other guys. So it occurs to me that maybe
+Hunchentoot's name was [predestined][zappa]?
+
+So as far as I'm concerned, I'm to preserve as much of this Lisp WWW
+stuff as can be preserved, and that's about it. I'll publish the current
+Tar Pit's innards and I'll do my best to help anyone who wants to bring
+Common Lisp WWWisms up. What I *won't* do is sink more time into
+perpetuating current WWW shistacks, I'd rather burn it all and start
+from scratch if the case. Or who knows, maybe at some point
+Hunchentoot's strengths will find their place *somewhere*, but until
+then, I'll have everything published and shelved, and that's that.
+
+<a name="workplan">So</a> then, reviewing [my plan][tmsr-work-v]: I'll
+spend the rest of September getting out all the yet-unpublished V
+patches; then I'll work out a concrete plan for migrating this blog to
+[MP-WP][mp-wp], since I suspect that won't be trivial; and finally, I'll
+reprioritize the [huge to-do][tmsr-work-ii] list (plus what's landed on
+this table meanwhile) and start producing other useful intellectual
+things, be they this language, that other Unix or whatever.
+
+[^1]: Similarly to what the mod\_alias, mod\_rewrite and all those
+ others do.
+
+[^2]: It seems that the CL-WHO [illustration piece][cl-who-illustration]
+ is still a tough one to digest; mind you, my poor communication
+ skills aren't CL-WHO's fault!
+
+ Now, consider that any use of PHP we know of actually involves the
+ interaction between two languages: the
+ "preprocessor"/templating/whatever-you-wanna-call-it language,
+ i.e. PHP, and the "preprocessee" language, that is, HTML. This
+ brings us to the practical issue of the interaction between these
+ two languages going *both ways*. Take the following minimal example:
+
+ ~~~~ {.php}
+ <body>
+ Some text, etc.
+ <?php
+ do_some_processing();
+ ?>
+ Some more text, etc.
+ </body>
+ ~~~~
+
+ The separation between HTML and PHP is clearly delineated by the `<?
+ ... ?>` tags, isn't it? Well no, because most of the times you're
+ actually going to do:
+
+ ~~~~ {.php}
+ <body>
+ Some text, etc.
+ <?php
+ echo '<a href="' . $url . '">' . $description . '</a>';
+ ?>
+ </body>
+ ~~~~
+
+ meaning that you *will be forced* to "call into" HTML from the
+ templating language whether you want it or not, which interleaving
+ CL-WHO does explicitly, correctly and at little expense -- learning
+ how to use it, basically. Meanwhile, on the PHPistic side of things,
+ just read the simple snippet above and tell me, how's that for
+ [pain][pain-formalized]?
+
+[cl-who-i]: /posts/y05/092-cl-who.html
+[hunchentoot-history]: /posts/y05/093-hunchentoot-i.html
+[cl-who-ii]: /posts/y05/095-cl-who-ii.html
+[hunchentoot-ii]: /posts/y05/096-hunchentoot-ii.html
+[hunchentoot-iii]: /posts/y06/097-hunchentoot-iii.html
+[hunchentoot-iv]: /posts/y06/098-hunchentoot-iv.html
+[hunchentoot-v]: /posts/y06/09b-hunchentoot-v.html
+[hunchentoot-via]: /posts/y06/09c-hunchentoot-via.html
+[hunchentoot-vib]: /posts/y06/09d-hunchentoot-vib.html
+[hunchentoot-genesis]: /posts/y06/09f-hunchentoot-genesis.html
+[logz-hunchen]: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log-search?q=hunchen&chan=trilema
+[logz-cl-who]: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log-search?q=cl-who&chan=trilema
+[logz-1934007]: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/trilema/2019-09-06#1934007
+[hunchentoot-example]: /posts/y06/097-hunchentoot-iii.html#selection-312.0-312.1
+[logz-1934037]: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/trilema/2019-09-06#1934037
+[hunchentoot-string]: /posts/y06/09c-hunchentoot-via.html#mrpp
+[hunchentoot-threading]: http://trilema.com/2019/so-i-was-thinking/#comment-131250
+[problems]: /posts/y06/09e-tmsr-work-v.html#selection-220.0-220.3
+[cl-who-illustration]: /posts/y05/095-cl-who-ii.html#fn4
+[pain-formalized]: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/trilema/2019-09-07#1934433
+[coad]: http://coad.thetarpit.org/
+[logz-1934283]: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/trilema/2019-09-06#1934283
+[logz-1934605]: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/trilema/2019-09-07#1934605
+[zappa]: https://archive.is/j5Ni9
+[tmsr-work-v]: /posts/y06/09e-tmsr-work-v.html
+[mp-wp]: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log-search?q=mp-wp&chan=trilema
+[tmsr-work-ii]: /posts/y05/090-tmsr-work-ii.html
projects / thetarpit.git / commitdiff