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Servlets in CL

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Fernando

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May 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/10/00
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Hi!

I have to write a few servlets and I'm planning to use CL. I
was wondering if there's some library that encapsulates state
retention, something like Java's HttpSession, available? O:-)

TIA


//-----------------------------------------------
// Fernando Rodriguez Romero
//
// frr at mindless dot com
//------------------------------------------------

David Bakhash

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May 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/10/00
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hey,

if you're using CL-HTTP, I'm sure that you can use the servlet model
somehow. What kinds of things, specifically, do you want these
servlets to do? i.e. what "state" do you want to save, etc?

dave

David J. Cooper

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May 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/10/00
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Fernando <spa...@must.die> writes:

> Hi!
>
> I have to write a few servlets and I'm planning to use CL. I
> was wondering if there's some library that encapsulates state
> retention, something like Java's HttpSession, available? O:-)
>
> TIA
>

You might want to have a look at ``gwl'' at http://gwl.sourceforge.net.


-dave

--
David J. Cooper Jr, Chief Engineer Genworks International
dco...@genworks.com 5777 West Maple, Suite 130
(248) 932-2512 (Genworks HQ/voicemail) West Bloomfield, MI 48322-2268
(248) 407-0633 (pager) http://www.genworks.com

Fernando

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May 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/11/00
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On 10 May 2000 08:00:27 -0400, dco...@genworks.com (David J. Cooper)
wrote:

>You might want to have a look at ``gwl'' at http://gwl.sourceforge.net.

OK :-)

Fernando

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May 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/11/00
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On 10 May 2000 09:00:15 -0400, David Bakhash <ca...@alum.mit.edu>
wrote:

>hey,
>
>if you're using CL-HTTP, I'm sure that you can use the servlet model

I'm afraid that won't be an option: I'll have to use Apache.

>somehow. What kinds of things, specifically, do you want these
>servlets to do? i.e. what "state" do you want to save, etc?

It must handle a sort of PIM. Basically I need to know who's
the user to show his personalized content. Since not everybody
accepts cookies, I would have encode this info in hidden parameters in
forms or in the links. I was looking for some library that would
encapsulate this thing and do the dirty work for me...

at ncal point verio point com x@x.x tom

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May 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/11/00
to
David Bakhash <ca...@alum.mit.edu> writes:
> if you're using CL-HTTP, I'm sure that you can use the servlet model
> somehow. What kinds of things, specifically, do you want these
> servlets to do? i.e. what "state" do you want to save, etc?

Does CL-HTTP support the mod_jserv or FastCGI APIs? Those might be a
good compromise. A web search returned nothing.

Tom.

Craig Brozefsky

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May 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/11/00
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Fernando <spa...@must.die> writes:

> On 10 May 2000 09:00:15 -0400, David Bakhash <ca...@alum.mit.edu>
> wrote:
>
> >hey,
> >

> >if you're using CL-HTTP, I'm sure that you can use the servlet model
>

> I'm afraid that won't be an option: I'll have to use Apache.

Then please take a look at IMHO, which uses the Apache JServ module to
provide a lisp servlet interface. IMHO also includes session
management and component based interface construction supporting the
use of templates. It's inspired by WebObjects, which if you're not
familiar with it is simply the best commercial web app environment
around. We intend to one-up it in the near future. IMHO is licensed
under an MIT/X license, so it's Free Software.

http://alpha.onshore.com/lisp-software


> It must handle a sort of PIM. Basically I need to know who's
> the user to show his personalized content. Since not everybody
> accepts cookies, I would have encode this info in hidden parameters in
> forms or in the links. I was looking for some library that would
> encapsulate this thing and do the dirty work for me...

IMHO session management does not rely upon cookies, instead it uses a
session identifier encoded in URLs.

Note: I'm one of the developers for IMHO and UncommonSQL (also at the
URL I gave you) and I work for onShore.

--
Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com>
Free Scheme/Lisp Software http://www.red-bean.com/~craig
"Hiding like thieves in the night from life, illusions of
oasis making you look twice. -- Mos Def and Talib Kweli

Fernando

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May 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/12/00
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On 11 May 2000 08:54:56 -0700, Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com>
wrote:

>Fernando <spa...@must.die> writes:
>
>> On 10 May 2000 09:00:15 -0400, David Bakhash <ca...@alum.mit.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >hey,
>> >
>> >if you're using CL-HTTP, I'm sure that you can use the servlet model
>>
>> I'm afraid that won't be an option: I'll have to use Apache.
>
>Then please take a look at IMHO, which uses the Apache JServ module to
>provide a lisp servlet interface. IMHO also includes session
>management and component based interface construction supporting the
>use of templates. It's inspired by WebObjects, which if you're not
>familiar with it is simply the best commercial web app environment
>around. We intend to one-up it in the near future. IMHO is licensed
>under an MIT/X license, so it's Free Software.
>
>http://alpha.onshore.com/lisp-software

Seams _very_ interesting. :-) BTW, the (tutorial)
http://alpha.onshore.com/lisp-software/imho/doc/imho-tutorial.html
gives a 404 error... :-?

Craig Brozefsky

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May 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/12/00
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Fernando <spa...@must.die> writes:

> Seams _very_ interesting. :-) BTW, the (tutorial)
> http://alpha.onshore.com/lisp-software/imho/doc/imho-tutorial.html
> gives a 404 error... :-?

Oh poo!

It should be available now, just built it.

I would note that the best course of action to getting IMHO and
UncommonSQL running is to snag the latest revisions out of anonymous
CVS. Instructions for doing so are on the home page. The tar and
debian distributions do not work reliably as we severely
underestimated the complexity of their construction an presently do
not have time to work the rest out.

Fernando

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May 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/12/00
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On 12 May 2000 08:49:45 -0700, Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com>
wrote:

>Fernando <spa...@must.die> writes:


>
>> Seams _very_ interesting. :-) BTW, the (tutorial)
>> http://alpha.onshore.com/lisp-software/imho/doc/imho-tutorial.html
>> gives a 404 error... :-?
>
>Oh poo!
>
>It should be available now, just built it.

OK Thanks. :-)

Andrew K. Wolven

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May 15, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/15/00
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tom wrote:

> David Bakhash <ca...@alum.mit.edu> writes:
> > if you're using CL-HTTP, I'm sure that you can use the servlet model

> > somehow. What kinds of things, specifically, do you want these
> > servlets to do? i.e. what "state" do you want to save, etc?
>
> Does CL-HTTP support the mod_jserv or FastCGI APIs? Those might be a
> good compromise. A web search returned nothing.
>

I believe IMHO uses JServe. These interfaces are not supported yet under
CL-HTTP (to the best of my knowledge). I would do it myself but I
discovered that it is just as easy to talk HTTP over a socket as it is to
talk fastcgi or other protocol. If you or anyone else can show me a
working httpd.conf file for Apache that shows how to configure mod_fastcgi
to talk to a standalone self-managed application process, then I would be
interested in hacking on an interface.

Andrew K. Wolven

P.S.: Saving state information of clients in a Lisp web server is a
no-brainer. (when to GC is the hard part) I believe you already proposed
the solution: Simply stuff a client-id into emitted anchors and forms.
Don't call it a session, however, or you might be violating some
dickhead's patent. (On that logic, you can't use lisp, because people
patent CL facilities all the time [I am thinking about starting a
bogus-patent web ring for fun, please send your bogus patents to me])

>
> Tom.


Andrew K. Wolven

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May 15, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/15/00
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"Andrew K. Wolven" wrote:

I am going to Patent the concept of a bogus-patent web ring

>
> >
> > Tom.


Fernando

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
to
On Mon, 15 May 2000 11:57:35 -0500, "Andrew K. Wolven"
<awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:


>P.S.: Saving state information of clients in a Lisp web server is a
>no-brainer. (when to GC is the hard part) I believe you already proposed

Please, enlighten us. O:-) I also have to save some client
related stuff into a database (results of a search, so I can show the
first 10 matches and latter show the rest without repeating the
query), and I'm not sure when to "GC" the temporary tables holding
that info. I was planning to use a chron process to cleanup every
entry older than X minutes... :-?

>the solution: Simply stuff a client-id into emitted anchors and forms.
>Don't call it a session, however, or you might be violating some
>dickhead's patent. (On that logic, you can't use lisp, because people

Is this what Jeff "Dickhead" Bezos patented (saving client-ids
into forms and anchors)??!!! =:-O I guess the real dickheads are at
the patents office then...

>patent CL facilities all the time [I am thinking about starting a
>bogus-patent web ring for fun, please send your bogus patents to me])

Fine, I'll patent the use of ">" for quoting text.

BTW, is there a more appropriate NG for discussing web server
programming? Most of this isn't really Lisp specific, and I'm afraid
I might be boring other readers... O:-)

Philip Lijnzaad

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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Fernando> I also have to save some client
Fernando> related stuff into a database (results of a search, so I can show the
Fernando> first 10 matches and latter show the rest without repeating the
Fernando> query),

Is this really necessary? If your data is (made) local and indexes are good,
chances are that re-running the query is faster ... This is what SRS
(sophisticated format-parser cum indexing system used to interconnect
hundreds of biological 'databases' (read: ascii files) does; see
http://www.lionbio.co.uk/), and it was never any problem. Cheers,

Philip
--
/dev/brain: character special (53/0)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Philip Lijnzaad, lijn...@ebi.ac.uk | European Bioinformatics Institute,rm A2-24
+44 (0)1223 49 4639 | Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton
+44 (0)1223 49 4468 (fax) | Cambridgeshire CB10 1SD, GREAT BRITAIN
PGP fingerprint: E1 03 BF 80 94 61 B6 FC 50 3D 1F 64 40 75 FB 53

Andrew K. Wolven

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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Fernando wrote:

> On Mon, 15 May 2000 11:57:35 -0500, "Andrew K. Wolven"
> <awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:
>
> >P.S.: Saving state information of clients in a Lisp web server is a
> >no-brainer. (when to GC is the hard part) I believe you already proposed
>

> Please, enlighten us. O:-) I also have to save some client


> related stuff into a database (results of a search, so I can show the

> first 10 matches and latter show the rest without repeating the

> query), and I'm not sure when to "GC" the temporary tables holding
> that info. I was planning to use a chron process to cleanup every
> entry older than X minutes... :-?
>
> >the solution: Simply stuff a client-id into emitted anchors and forms.
> >Don't call it a session, however, or you might be violating some
> >dickhead's patent. (On that logic, you can't use lisp, because people
>
> Is this what Jeff "Dickhead" Bezos patented (saving client-ids
> into forms and anchors)??!!! =:-O I guess the real dickheads are at
> the patents office then...
>
> >patent CL facilities all the time [I am thinking about starting a
> >bogus-patent web ring for fun, please send your bogus patents to me])
>
> Fine, I'll patent the use of ">" for quoting text.
>
> BTW, is there a more appropriate NG for discussing web server
> programming? Most of this isn't really Lisp specific, and I'm afraid
> I might be boring other readers... O:-)
>

Apparently there is not a better place. There used to be the mailing list
www-cl but that was a cl-http mailing list and has since fizzled for political
reasons. Perhaps we should start a mailing list.

let me go to starbucks and get my coffee, and then I will write you on the list
and try to give you some good information on the best way to get started doing
web with lisp.

AKW

back in few

Craig Brozefsky

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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"Andrew K. Wolven" <awo...@redfernlane.org> writes:

> Apparently there is not a better place. There used to be the
> mailing list www-cl but that was a cl-http mailing list and has
> since fizzled for political reasons. Perhaps we should start a
> mailing list.

Taking this as my cue, I setup a list called "lispweb" which is for
discussion of web programming in lisps of various flavors. If you
would like to a subscription please send mail to lispweb-request, or
me.

I will make a seperate announcement for this in the next hour or so.

Andrew K. Wolven

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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Fernando wrote:

> On Mon, 15 May 2000 11:57:35 -0500, "Andrew K. Wolven"
> <awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:
>
> >P.S.: Saving state information of clients in a Lisp web server is a
> >no-brainer. (when to GC is the hard part) I believe you already proposed
>
> Please, enlighten us. O:-) I also have to save some client
> related stuff into a database (results of a search, so I can show the
> first 10 matches and latter show the rest without repeating the
> query), and I'm not sure when to "GC" the temporary tables holding
> that info. I was planning to use a chron process to cleanup every
> entry older than X minutes... :-?
>

It would be useful to know what Lisp platforms you intend to use.

If you are dealing with a production web server or a production web-application
server, you are going to have to deal with sockets and threads, which are
platform dependent.

The questions I have seen relate to emission of client [session] specific
content.

To do this easily, you will want a long-lived lisp process that will maintain
state for you. (not CGI)

What is the OS?
What is the Lisp?
Are you wanting to set up a Lisp web server, or are you wanting to set up a
web-application server to be run under a conventional server? (such as under
Apache)

Less critical: what DB do you want to use, and what do you plan to store in it?

Some of the things that Perl/CGI hackers put in a database can actually live as
lisp objects in memory.
You don't need a database unless you really need to store things in tables.

For now go to allegroserve.sourceforge.net and download allegroserve. There is
a file you will find very useful (htmlgen.cl). Htmlgen is the simplest of the
simple in terms of dynamic html generation with common lisp. Even if you plan
to use templates, you will find this macro very useful.

AKW


>
> >the solution: Simply stuff a client-id into emitted anchors and forms.
> >Don't call it a session, however, or you might be violating some
> >dickhead's patent. (On that logic, you can't use lisp, because people
>
> Is this what Jeff "Dickhead" Bezos patented (saving client-ids
> into forms and anchors)??!!! =:-O I guess the real dickheads are at
> the patents office then...
>
> >patent CL facilities all the time [I am thinking about starting a
> >bogus-patent web ring for fun, please send your bogus patents to me])
>
> Fine, I'll patent the use of ">" for quoting text.
>
> BTW, is there a more appropriate NG for discussing web server
> programming? Most of this isn't really Lisp specific, and I'm afraid
> I might be boring other readers... O:-)
>

Andrew K. Wolven

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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"Andrew K. Wolven" wrote:

HTMLGEN will show you that HTML should have just been lisp in the first place. If
you use emacs or have paren matching turned on in vi, you will never miss an end
tag.

Tim Moore

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
to
On Tue, 16 May 2000, Andrew K. Wolven wrote:

> Apparently there is not a better place. There used to be the mailing list
> www-cl but that was a cl-http mailing list and has since fizzled for political
> reasons. Perhaps we should start a mailing list.

So what's up with that? Even the cl-http mailing list has been extremely
quiet in the last month. Are people moving away from cl-http? If so,
why?

Tim

Andrew K. Wolven

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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Tim Moore wrote:

It is simple really, John Mallery, who wrote 95-100% of the core components of
CL-HTTP was intentionally vague about the commercial license. He dragged his feet
in the decision making process on the commercial licensing issue, and failed to
respond to email on this subject.
Basically people got fed up and found other solutions.
Technically, CL-HTTP is a solid server, especially on MCL and Genera. I wouldn't
recommend it for Franz however. It has bugs dealing with the threads on that
platform, and I doubt anyone will actually take the time to fix them. (The people
at Franz apparently felt it is just as easy to write a server, rather than working
the bugs out of CL-HTTP.)
The distribution is also starting to get unwieldy due to size and lack of
defsystem. (there is a defsystem but it is not actually used for the distribution)

AKW

Andrew K. Wolven

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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To compare anything to they way it works on Genera is cheating.
No there is no freaking defsystem to load CL-HTTP on Franz.
CL-HTTP promptly crashes ACL within 24 hours. CL-HTTP loads nicely on Franz
using one command, It also loads a lot of stuff you don't need. (Therefore you
must write your own build-cl-http command)
Mallery isn't doing anything for the benefit of the Lisp Community itself, and
is only alienating supporters if he thinks I am going to make any customer
cough up more than two hundred bucks for CL-HTTP when Apache is free. If he
wants to have bad blood with Franz, then I am sorry, because I am going to side
with Franz.

Rainer Joswig wrote:

> In article <3921C3B3...@redfernlane.org>, "Andrew K. Wolven"


> <awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:
>
> > Basically people got fed up and found other solutions.
>

> Seems that *some* people are developing CL-HTTP based
> applications. Others are copying some of its concepts.


>
> > (The people
> > at Franz apparently felt it is just as easy to write a server, rather
> > than working
> > the bugs out of CL-HTTP.)
>

> I know about who this says something...


>
> > The distribution is also starting to get unwieldy due to size and lack of
> > defsystem.
>

> I just compiled/loaded the latest CL-HTTP
> devo on my Powerbook G3 by loading one file, started
> the server with one menu item invocation and got the top server web
> page in Netscape with another menu item invocation. Total time:
> less than one minute. Doesn't sound too complicated to me.


>
> > (there is a defsystem but it is not actually used for the
> > distribution)
>

> CL-HTTP doesn't use a defsystem???
>
> Try "Show System Definition CL-HTTP" on Genera. How do you
> think patches are being maintained? I'm also just doing "Restore
> Distribution" over the net to keep my local sources current.
>
> Load CL-HTTP into MCL and look at the CL-HTTP menu under "Edit CL-HTTP
> System", "Compile CL-HTTP System",
> "Load CL-HTTP System" and "Recompile CL-HTTP system".
>
> In LispWorks browse your systems using the usual facilities
> after loading CL-HTTP. What do you see?


Andrew K. Wolven

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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It should also be noted that large chunks of code live only in the platform
dependent directories and is about as organized as a plate of spaghetti.

R. Matthew Emerson

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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"Andrew K. Wolven" <awo...@redfernlane.org> writes:

> CL-HTTP promptly crashes ACL within 24 hours.

there is no question that CL-HTTP in ACL isn't as polished as it is on
MCL, but it doesn't crash within 24 hours, either.

ACL running CL-HTTP is serving www.alu.org, and it's been running
continuously since january 8th. (but nothing very complicated is
going on).

-matt

Andrew K. Wolven

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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"R. Matthew Emerson" wrote:

Please send me your latest patches.

Thanks,
Andrew K. Wolven


Andrew K. Wolven

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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I also should not just expect CL-HTTP to behave wonderfully for debugging
on a Nichimen Mirai-devo image.
I was missing my Lisp machine having everything up in one memory space.
Thus my case for Lisp machine:
Even if the threading or sockets or streams foobars on you, there are
still plenty of options. Genera does not core dump running on an good
ivory[or 36xx] processor with good memory and good disk. The processor is
intelligent and knows how to handle various conditions, traps, flags or
signals and deal. You also have the FEP, which can warm boot the world in
memory. You can probably reboot the machine while running a program on a
Photon board.

Lisp is in a sad, sad state. Even though everybody in the lisp community
knows that this is technology for the worlds salvation, no one will
cooperate. Its all about the cash.

Sun is going to reinvent object-oriented intelligent hardware ignoring the
fact that it has already existed by at least four companies ten years ago.

They are going to reinvent all of Lisp only to years later, discover
through archaeology, that Lisp was there all along.

I think as human beings we do this over and over again. We are so
arrogant as to believe that our ancestors were primitive and that dolphins
are fish.

Seti beams radio signals in to deep space ignoring the fact that the
universe itself is an intelligent signal.

We treat third world countries and people like lesser important human
beings by enforcing export controls.

We force pedestrians into smaller spaces like cattle and make them breathe
carbon monoxide.

The lisp industry waned in the early nineties for no other reason than
humans are stuck in their material existance.

Erik is a stupid viking.

I am going to spend more time learning agrarian practices and less time
trying to convince people in the lisp community that we should be
cooperating.

Thanks,
Andrew K. Wolven

Andrew K. Wolven

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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Make sure you look at the log and see how many hits your getting.
I am pretty sure that if you try to do any heavy developing it will puke
at least every couple of days.
Could be an ACL501 thing I guess. (or worse: a windows thing) [it was
puking every couple of days on sun too, I believe]

"R. Matthew Emerson" wrote:

> "Andrew K. Wolven" <awo...@redfernlane.org> writes:
>
> > > ACL running CL-HTTP is serving www.alu.org, and it's been running
> > > continuously since january 8th. (but nothing very complicated is
> > > going on).
> > >
> > > -matt
> >

> > Please send me your latest patches.
>

> vanilla cl-http 70-23 includes the fixes.
>
> also, before you start cl-http:
> (setf http:*resolve-ip-addresses* nil)
> (setf acl-socket:*print-hostnames-in-stream* nil)
>
> this prevents CL-HTTP from doing a reverse lookup when it tries to put
> the hostname of the connecting system into the process name string.
>
> previous versions didn't pay attention to http:*resolve-ip-addresses*
> and had a buggy wait function which would cause processes to get
> arrested and stack up.
>
> -matt


Robert Monfera

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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"Andrew K. Wolven" wrote:

> Mallery isn't doing anything for the benefit of the Lisp Community itself,
> and
> is only alienating supporters if he thinks I am going to make any customer
> cough up more than two hundred bucks for CL-HTTP when Apache is free.

If $200 is big money for a web server for your customers, then I don't
envy you, but supposedly your talent can add a lot of value to it (embed
the web server in an application, for example), and help you make decent
money. Or is it that you can't get the clients to pay for anything?

As for the CL-HTTP license, I think that a meaningful commercial license
(maybe along with an alternative, unsupported OS license) would be
preferable, but I don't think it would make a difference for you, as you
are clearly out of your medication.

Robert

Andrew K. Wolven

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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Rainer Joswig wrote:

> In article <3921DD20...@redfernlane.org>, "Andrew K. Wolven"


> <awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:
>
> > To compare anything to they way it works on Genera is cheating.
>

> I was talking about MCL and LW also, wasn't I?


>
> > No there is no freaking defsystem to load CL-HTTP on Franz.
>

> On every platform where possible CL-HTTP uses the native
> defsystem. Ask Franz for support, since they are maintaining
> the port to the latest ACL version.
>
> Xanalys is maintaining the LispWorks port. It works there.
> Digitool is maintaining parts of the MCL port it works
> there, too. It should not be to complicated.


>
> > CL-HTTP promptly crashes ACL within 24 hours.
>

> Ask Franz, they are maintaining the port.


>
> > using one command, It also loads a lot of stuff you don't need.
> > (Therefore you
> > must write your own build-cl-http command)
>

> Ask Franz.


>
> > wants to have bad blood with Franz, then I am sorry, because I am going
> > to side
> > with Franz.
>

> See above.
>
> --
> Rainer Joswig, Technical Director, BU Partner,
> ISION Internet AG, Steinhoft 9, 20459 Hamburg, Germany
> Tel: +49 40 3070 2950, Fax: +49 40 3070 2999
> Email: mailto:rainer...@ision.netWWW: http://www.ision.net/

Thanks for your advice. I asked Franz. They gave me Allegroserve for free.


Andrew K. Wolven

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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Rainer Joswig wrote:

> In article <3921EF1F...@redfernlane.org>, "Andrew K. Wolven"


> <awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:
>
> > Lisp is in a sad, sad state. Even though everybody in the lisp community
> > knows that this is technology for the worlds salvation, no one will
> > cooperate. Its all about the cash.
>

> Maybe when browsing your CL-HTTP documentation you see that
> a lot of people have and are collaborating to make it
> work. There are various contributed subsystems (from
> HTML to XML parsing) and several ports have been done
> by users. I personally are very thankful to these people.
> Many man years have been gone into it.

It referring to JCMA's pocket?

Background info: I am just now getting up to speed with application
development. I am not ashamed of this.

What this means is that if I contributed CL-HTTP, I still could not justify the
cost of the commercial license to my customer, because they expect Dreamweaver
and Apache.
You can chant Lisp all day and the customer doesn't know that you are not using
Perl CGI for their site.
You can't enter competition in an open source market with a price in the
thousands of dollars!
Thats ridiculous! Allegroserve is LGPL!
I am pretty sure that means I can port it to CMUCL if I wish. Thats
competative with Apache.
I don't need ultra high performance streams, because I am doing sites for Joe
Schmo not the prestigious Whitehouse.
Excuse the hell out of me for being confused into thinking that I could
actually contribute to the CL-HTTP project and still be able to afford to run
my contribution!
I understand that you guys are Mallery's friends but please get a clue.

Andrew K. Wolven

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May 16, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/16/00
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I better submit my resume.

Rainer Joswig wrote:

> In article <39220B4E...@redfernlane.org>, "Andrew K. Wolven"


> <awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:
>
> > Thanks for your advice. I asked Franz. They gave me Allegroserve for
> > free.
>

> Minus the price of ACL to be able to run it.
>
> Hey, they even now are using hierarchical packages.
> Seems like they are going to have a Lisp dialect
> of there own.

Rainer Joswig

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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In article <3921C3B3...@redfernlane.org>, "Andrew K. Wolven"

R. Matthew Emerson

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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Rainer Joswig

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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In article <3921DD20...@redfernlane.org>, "Andrew K. Wolven"
<awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:

> To compare anything to they way it works on Genera is cheating.

I was talking about MCL and LW also, wasn't I?

> No there is no freaking defsystem to load CL-HTTP on Franz.

On every platform where possible CL-HTTP uses the native
defsystem. Ask Franz for support, since they are maintaining
the port to the latest ACL version.

Xanalys is maintaining the LispWorks port. It works there.
Digitool is maintaining parts of the MCL port it works
there, too. It should not be to complicated.

> CL-HTTP promptly crashes ACL within 24 hours.

Ask Franz, they are maintaining the port.

> using one command, It also loads a lot of stuff you don't need.
> (Therefore you
> must write your own build-cl-http command)

Ask Franz.

> wants to have bad blood with Franz, then I am sorry, because I am going
> to side
> with Franz.

See above.

--

Rainer Joswig

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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In article <3921EF1F...@redfernlane.org>, "Andrew K. Wolven"
<awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:

> Lisp is in a sad, sad state. Even though everybody in the lisp community
> knows that this is technology for the worlds salvation, no one will
> cooperate. Its all about the cash.

Maybe when browsing your CL-HTTP documentation you see that
a lot of people have and are collaborating to make it
work. There are various contributed subsystems (from
HTML to XML parsing) and several ports have been done
by users. I personally are very thankful to these people.
Many man years have been gone into it.

--

Rainer Joswig

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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In article <3921DEE3...@redfernlane.org>, "Andrew K. Wolven"
<awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:

> It should also be noted that large chunks of code live only in the
> platform
> dependent directories and is about as organized as a plate of spaghetti.

Platform maintainers can reduce the amount of code duplication
- just see how little changes are necessary for the LispWorks port.
Read "http:lw;server;sysdcl.lisp" for the system
declarations for the LispWorks port.

Rainer Joswig

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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In article <39220B4E...@redfernlane.org>, "Andrew K. Wolven"
<awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:

> Thanks for your advice. I asked Franz. They gave me Allegroserve for
> free.

Minus the price of ACL to be able to run it.

Hey, they even now are using hierarchical packages.
Seems like they are going to have a Lisp dialect
of there own.

--

Will Hartung

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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Andrew K. Wolven wrote in message <392211D4...@redfernlane.org>...

>What this means is that if I contributed CL-HTTP, I still could not justify
the
>cost of the commercial license to my customer, because they expect
Dreamweaver
>and Apache.
>You can chant Lisp all day and the customer doesn't know that you are not
using
>Perl CGI for their site.
>You can't enter competition in an open source market with a price in the
>thousands of dollars!
>Thats ridiculous! Allegroserve is LGPL!
>I am pretty sure that means I can port it to CMUCL if I wish. Thats
>competative with Apache.
>I don't need ultra high performance streams, because I am doing sites for
Joe
>Schmo not the prestigious Whitehouse.
>Excuse the hell out of me for being confused into thinking that I could
>actually contribute to the CL-HTTP project and still be able to afford to
run
>my contribution!
>I understand that you guys are Mallery's friends but please get a clue.


Preface: This isn't a defense of CL-HTTP, nor an attack of any kind on
Franz. This is simple a reality check for Andrew.

The Allegroserve may perhaps be an LGPL software package, but I can assure
that the ACL core that it relies upon is most certainly not. You can not use
the "free" ACL version for anything beyond simple development. To use it for
anything realistic, anything "commercial", means you need to license ACL
from Franz.

And Franz will want a large amount of money to serve up a commercial web
application. You cannot simply buy a copy and throw it on to your servers
(unless they've changed their terms recently, mind you). In the commercial
world, their prices are NOT unreasonable for Internet servers today, but
they are pretty darn high to Human Beings. (The dark side of their prices
isn't that they're high, it's that they're competitive!)

If the Allegroserve happens to work on other Lisps that may have cheaper
prices, then so be it. However, I'm sure that Franz's focus is in enhancing
their product to make it more enticing to a wider range of people, and the
server infrastructure is a critical piece. Most servers have a very similar
core, and by making that core robust and extensible, Franz adds value for
customers who wish to focus on the application rather than the plumbing.

If Allegroserve is the start of that sort of foundation, then more power to
them. By working on Allegroserve, Franz gets to work on both sides of the
server equation. The application side of interfaces, APIs and services as
well as the "OS" side of the core Lisp image that can be tweaked by Franz to
better support these kinds of servers. Since a lot of server functionality
is in the gray nether regiions not specified in the ANSI standard, Franz
will probably show little restraint in extending their system to meet these
kinds of needs.

I read the license agreement with CL-HTTP, and I didn't see any mention of
$200 anywhere. Seems similar to the muddled license of the past that many
users seem to have issue with.

What's interesting is that probably the worst news to hit something like
Allegroserve and Franz (along with most any other commercial Internet App
server) is Apples recent announcement dropping their WebObjects "unlimited"
deployment version from $50,000 down to $700. In the market, $50,000 was a
competitive (if a bit high) number. Many app server vendors are probably a
bit grumpy right now. WebObjects and Franz would probably hit completely
different markets, but regardless, folks are going to ask "How come theirs
is $700 for development and/or unlimited runtime...and yours isn't?".

Will Hartung
(vft...@home.com)


Andrew K. Wolven

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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Will Hartung wrote:

Complete bullshit. I am just going to do it.
Franz gets their cash by legitimate means. They made me pay for an ACL license,
and now I am looking at the source code to a tiny fast web server (minus
uri.cl). I wouldn't be suprised If I could get this working under CLISP
[without threads].

>
>
> And Franz will want a large amount of money to serve up a commercial web
> application. You cannot simply buy a copy and throw it on to your servers
> (unless they've changed their terms recently, mind you). In the commercial
> world, their prices are NOT unreasonable for Internet servers today, but
> they are pretty darn high to Human Beings. (The dark side of their prices
> isn't that they're high, it's that they're competitive!)
>

I am looking at an email from my Franz salesperson [VAR, runtimes, etc.], and it
seems more reasonable than the rumors I get about CL-HTTP. But that is only if
I choose to use ACL instead of CMUCL or Open Genera for deployment.

>
> If the Allegroserve happens to work on other Lisps that may have cheaper
> prices, then so be it. However, I'm sure that Franz's focus is in enhancing
> their product to make it more enticing to a wider range of people, and the
> server infrastructure is a critical piece. Most servers have a very similar
> core, and by making that core robust and extensible, Franz adds value for
> customers who wish to focus on the application rather than the plumbing.
>
> If Allegroserve is the start of that sort of foundation, then more power to
> them. By working on Allegroserve, Franz gets to work on both sides of the
> server equation. The application side of interfaces, APIs and services as
> well as the "OS" side of the core Lisp image that can be tweaked by Franz to
> better support these kinds of servers. Since a lot of server functionality
> is in the gray nether regiions not specified in the ANSI standard, Franz
> will probably show little restraint in extending their system to meet these
> kinds of needs.

Franz damn well knows that I am going to be knocking at their door as soon as I
get a customer flow. We have maybe two more things to nail down in GWL before
we are going after the Lotus Notes market.

>
>
> I read the license agreement with CL-HTTP, and I didn't see any mention of
> $200 anywhere. Seems similar to the muddled license of the past that many
> users seem to have issue with.
>
> What's interesting is that probably the worst news to hit something like
> Allegroserve and Franz (along with most any other commercial Internet App
> server) is Apples recent announcement dropping their WebObjects "unlimited"
> deployment version from $50,000 down to $700. In the market, $50,000 was a
> competitive (if a bit high) number. Many app server vendors are probably a
> bit grumpy right now. WebObjects and Franz would probably hit completely
> different markets, but regardless, folks are going to ask "How come theirs
> is $700 for development and/or unlimited runtime...and yours isn't?".
>

What do you mean?? GWL is open source. CMUCL will see it for the misers.

They don't call it domino for nothin, and were going to knock it over.

AKW

>
> Will Hartung
> (vft...@home.com)


Andrew K. Wolven

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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"Andrew K. Wolven" wrote:

> Complete bullshit. I am just going to do it. [CMUCL]

In case you want to know about GWL:

Those two things two nail down are:
Persistence methodology atop an RDMS, and
Use of templates for drag and drop interface building. (may just ignore and let
someone else do)

Of course we are going to have to always perfect:
url->lisp translation (well under control)
GC and session management (dependent upon server load)

and add:
online source code editing tools (likely to be java enhanced)
(just in case you don't have emacs)

I think we will be able to iron out this stuff in six months or less, and will very
likely be entirely free except for ACL. We are making it a point ot not be too ACL
dependent. Or server dependent (we plan on supporting CL-HTTP).

Thanks to Franz we have a lot more options to present to out potential customers.

We're going to be recommending things like Allegroserve for Franz and CL-HTTP for
Mac.
(reasonable??)

We still need to be able to have a CL solution to Apache however: LGPL Allegroserve
or custom.

There never would have been an Allegroserve if CL-HTTP hadn't been so aloof.

Craig Brozefsky

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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"Will Hartung" <vft...@home.com> writes:

> What's interesting is that probably the worst news to hit something
> like Allegroserve and Franz (along with most any other commercial
> Internet App server) is Apples recent announcement dropping their
> WebObjects "unlimited" deployment version from $50,000 down to
> $700. In the market, $50,000 was a competitive (if a bit high)
> number. Many app server vendors are probably a bit grumpy right
> now. WebObjects and Franz would probably hit completely different
> markets, but regardless, folks are going to ask "How come theirs is
> $700 for development and/or unlimited runtime...and yours isn't?".

The more remarkable thing is that WO is way ahead of any of it's
competitors, and now it's going to be cheaper by an order of
magnitude. Not only is the web app development toolkit, the WO
Framework, much more cohesive, flexible, and scalable than any of the
competing frameworks, but the database interface, the EOF, is a
friggin' gem as well.

Despite the fact that WO provides solutions for problems that are
several levels above what the competitors are just now addressing (and
failing miserably with the EJB standard), this is still basic
infrastructure for building web apps. I believe it would benefit
Common Lisp quite a bit for this infrastructure to be Free Software,
available to all commercial and non-commercial entities in the lisp
community. This is neccesary to provide the basic level of
functionality needed to deliver internet applications, letting
developers concentrate on solving the problems that CL excels at.

The groundwork has already been done, but there is more work to do,
porting to the various CL runtimes, documenting, and adding
collections of commonly used interface components.

Fernando

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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On Tue, 16 May 2000 12:47:52 -0500, "Andrew K. Wolven"
<awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:


>> Please, enlighten us. O:-) I also have to save some client
>> related stuff into a database (results of a search, so I can show the
>> first 10 matches and latter show the rest without repeating the
>> query), and I'm not sure when to "GC" the temporary tables holding
>> that info. I was planning to use a chron process to cleanup every
>> entry older than X minutes... :-?
>>
>
>It would be useful to know what Lisp platforms you intend to use.

LispWorks


>What is the OS?

Linux and Apache. I probably won't be able to change this
(Apache).

>Are you wanting to set up a Lisp web server, or are you wanting to set up a
>web-application server to be run under a conventional server? (such as under
>Apache)

The latter.

>Less critical: what DB do you want to use, and what do you plan to store in it?

I'm considering interbase.

>For now go to allegroserve.sourceforge.net and download allegroserve. There is
>a file you will find very useful (htmlgen.cl). Htmlgen is the simplest of the
>simple in terms of dynamic html generation with common lisp. Even if you plan

>to use templates, you will find this macro very useful.

OK, bt is this a http server? What would really interesting
(IMHO) would be an application server for CL....

Fernando

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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On Wed, 17 May 2000 01:33:35 -0500, "Andrew K. Wolven"
<awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:


>Franz damn well knows that I am going to be knocking at their door as soon as I
>get a customer flow. We have maybe two more things to nail down in GWL before
>we are going after the Lotus Notes market.

Please forgive my ignorance, but...GWL??? :-?

Stig Hemmer

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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Philip Lijnzaad <lijn...@ebi.ac.uk> writes:
> Fernando> first 10 matches and latter show the rest without repeating the
> Fernando> query),
>
> Is this really necessary? If your data is (made) local and indexes are good,
> chances are that re-running the query is faster ...

One problem is that with a dynamic database, rerunning the query can
give you a different result, which will look rather odd.

Stig Hemmer,
Jack of a Few Trades.

Philip Lijnzaad

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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Stig> Philip Lijnzaad <lijn...@ebi.ac.uk> writes:
Fernando> first 10 matches and latter show the rest without repeating the
Fernando> query),
>>
>> Is this really necessary? If your data is (made) local and indexes are good,
>> chances are that re-running the query is faster ...

Stig> One problem is that with a dynamic database, rerunning the query can
Stig> give you a different result, which will look rather odd.

yes, granted. And anyway, even when re-running the query, there is still
client state to be kept track of, namely which window on the (stored or
re-queried) data needs to be served as the 'next page'. But query
results are usually more voluminous than the queries (query strings)
themselves, so at least the amount of state-to-be-stored can be minimized,
and perhaps even access is faster.
Philip
--
/dev/brain: character special (53/0)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Philip Lijnzaad, lijn...@ebi.ac.uk | European Bioinformatics Institute,rm A2-24
+44 (0)1223 49 4639 | Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton
+44 (0)1223 49 4468 (fax) | Cambridgeshire CB10 1SD, GREAT BRITAIN
PGP fingerprint: E1 03 BF 80 94 61 B6 FC 50 3D 1F 64 40 75 FB 53

Erik Naggum

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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* Rainer Joswig <rainer...@ision.net>

| Minus the price of ACL to be able to run it.

Geez, _that's_ an intelligent counter-argument. Can you please be
explicit and explain your real beef with Franz Inc?

| Hey, they even now are using hierarchical packages.
| Seems like they are going to have a Lisp dialect
| of there own.

Although I don't necessarily think hierarchical packages is a good
move, they have published the source code necessary to make _any_
Common Lisp get hierarchical packages. It affects a single function
in the Common Lisp package. I'm impressed with your ability to
label this a "dialect", because it clearly suggests supernatural
mental powers.

#:Erik
--
If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations.

William Deakin

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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Rainer Joswig wrote:

> Hey, they even now are using hierarchical packages.
> Seems like they are going to have a Lisp dialect
> of there own.

Being hard of thinking: what is up with this? Unless this breaks existing
code (which I assume it doesn't) and is not enforced in such a way that have
rather than choose to use hierarchical packages (which again is another
assumption, a something I would probably choose not to use because of
portability issues)...

Best Regards,

:) will


Erik Naggum

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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* Rainer Joswig wrote:
| Hey, they even now are using hierarchical packages. Seems like they
| are going to have a Lisp dialect of there own.

* William Deakin <wi...@pindar.com>


| Being hard of thinking: what is up with this?

It's Rainer Joswig having a personal gripe with Franz Inc, but he
isn't honest enough to come out and state his real issue. From what
I have seen in the past, there isn't _anything_ Franz Inc can do to
appease him, either, so an informed choice is to ignore his noise.

| Unless this breaks existing code (which I assume it doesn't) and is
| not enforced in such a way that have rather than choose to use
| hierarchical packages (which again is another assumption, a
| something I would probably choose not to use because of portability
| issues)...

If you call find-package (or cause it to be called) with a string
designator that starts with a dot, there is no package so named, the
current package contains a dot in its name, there is a package with
the same name up to the dot and the string you gave find-package
from the dot, you will not get nil, but that package. I'm sure this
affects _some_ existing code.

Hierarchical packages have been added to aid in portability. It's
probably more an attempt to cater to the Java crowd, however. I'm
not sure what this will buy the Lisp community, but this is one of
the most innocuous changes I have seen anyone suggest.

William Deakin

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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Erik Naggum wrote:

> ...[elided a description of ACL find-package]... I'm sure this affects
> _some_ existing code.

Agreed. But as you say, in a quite innocuous fashion.

> Hierarchical packages have been added to aid in portability. It's
> probably more an attempt to cater to the Java crowd, however.

This is my suspicion also.

> I'm not sure what this will buy the Lisp community, but this is one of
> the most innocuous changes I have seen anyone suggest.

Then again (I suspect) that if I were going to give a ÂŁ10-note to each
member of the said community, there would be somebody that would
grumble...

;) will


Tim Bradshaw

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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* Rainer Joswig wrote:

> Hey, they even now are using hierarchical packages.
> Seems like they are going to have a Lisp dialect
> of there own.

Well, I think it's kind of the idea that implementors should get to
experiment with extensions so that in due course some consensus can
emerge about what the right way of doing things is and a standard can
be evolved. I don't know about the hierarchical package stuff, and I
do know that I don't desperately like some of the other things they're
doing, but I'm definitely glad that they're doing *something* to
evolve CL, while making information available about what they're
implementing.

--tim

Erik Naggum

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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* Erik Naggum

| ...[elided a description of ACL find-package]... I'm sure this
| affects _some_ existing code.

* William Deakin


| Agreed. But as you say, in a quite innocuous fashion.

I _was_ being facetious with that last comment. I don't actually
think _any_ existing code will notice anything. (Rainer Joswig may
now helpfully provide a contrived counter-example, of course.)

John Foderaro

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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While the hierarchial package specification does allow for
naming packages with relative package names, that's not
used in the AllegroServe source. Thus all AllegroServe
package references can be understood by any Common Lisp.
Hierarchial package names are for the most part a
naming convention designed to prevent package names
we choose from conflicting with package names
other users choose.

William Deakin

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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Erik Naggum wrote:

> * Erik Naggum


> I _was_ being facetious with that last comment. I don't actually
> think _any_ existing code will notice anything.

And I was (clearly) being terminally stupid.

:( will


Joe Marshall

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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"Andrew K. Wolven" <awo...@redfernlane.org> writes:

> Make sure you look at the log and see how many hits your getting.
> I am pretty sure that if you try to do any heavy developing it will puke
> at least every couple of days.
> Could be an ACL501 thing I guess. (or worse: a windows thing) [it was
> puking every couple of days on sun too, I believe]

There are some known race conditions in the mulitprocess code in ACL
501. I would imagine that they may be the culprit.


David Hanley

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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Erik Naggum wrote:

> * Rainer Joswig wrote:
> | Hey, they even now are using hierarchical packages. Seems like they
> | are going to have a Lisp dialect of there own.
>

> * William Deakin <wi...@pindar.com>
> | Being hard of thinking: what is up with this?
>
> It's Rainer Joswig having a personal gripe with Franz Inc, but he
> isn't honest enough to come out and state his real issue. From what
> I have seen in the past, there isn't _anything_ Franz Inc can do to
> appease him, either, so an informed choice is to ignore his noise.

I don't there's _nothing_ they could do. I think they have a
decent product, but I consider their pricing structure unworkable.
If I was more committed to lisp, I might be annoyed, I guess, as
is it's the choice between the lesser of two evils. Although lispworks
is not as mature, they do provide *tons* of help.

dave


Jeff Dalton

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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I hate to join what may be a "bashing" thread, and so far as I know
CL-HTTP is an interesting, useful, and innovative system, but when
I needed to provide an HTTP interface to a Lisp application, I decided
against CL-HTTP, for a couple of reasons.

First, the license terms. I forget exactly what the issues were, but
it looked like I'd have to deal with lawyers before I could seriously
consider using it, or even parts of it, such as the XML parser.

Second, even though I'm an experienced Lisp programmer, the code was
dauntingly large and complex - and not well commented. It looked like
it would be far easier for me to write an adequate server myself, from
scratch, than to understand CL-HTTP well enough so that I could use it
with confidence. I couldn't take the chance that I'd find myself up
against a deadline while I was trying to fix some obscure bug.

So I wrote a little server myself in GCL (with some small amounts of
C code for select and a few other things), and I've been pretty happy
with it.

There are probably things I'd like to do that would be easier or
more elegant in CL-HTTP, but the effort required to get to the point
where I could do them was just too great.

-- jeff

Fernando

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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On Wed, 17 May 2000 08:51:43 GMT, Fernando <spa...@must.die> wrote:

>On Wed, 17 May 2000 01:33:35 -0500, "Andrew K. Wolven"
><awo...@redfernlane.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Franz damn well knows that I am going to be knocking at their door as soon as I
>>get a customer flow. We have maybe two more things to nail down in GWL before
>>we are going after the Lotus Notes market.
>
>Please forgive my ignorance, but...GWL??? :-?

Forget the silly question. O:-)

Erik Naggum

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
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* David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org>

| I don't there's _nothing_ they could do. I think they have a
| decent product, but I consider their pricing structure unworkable.

That's not it. You just _don't_ slam someone's technical or
professional _ethics_ because they charge a price _you_ don't want
to pay, when others clearly think it's OK to pay what they want.

The cost of an Allegro CL license should be nearly irrelevant to
most software projects, apart from the ones that are losing money by
design -- i.e., open source and hobbyist projects. These have the
ability to use the free Allegro CL Trial edition until they figure
out that they need to make money. Programmer time _really_ costs
money. Hardware and software does not.

Wanting more for less is quite universal, but thinking that it gives
those who want more than they get for less than they like a right to
call someone else's desire for same "unworkable" _unilaterally_ is
just plain stupid: Your demands as a cheap customer is just as
"unworkable" to a vendor as you think their pricing is to you. This
goes for _everything_ in _any_ market.

David Hanley

unread,
May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
to

Erik Naggum wrote:

> * David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org>
> | I don't there's _nothing_ they could do. I think they have a
> | decent product, but I consider their pricing structure unworkable.
>
> That's not it. You just _don't_ slam someone's technical or
> professional _ethics_ because they charge a price _you_ don't want
> to pay, when others clearly think it's OK to pay what they want.

Well, there's 2 issues. I'm not slamming their ethics personally,
I'm just saying their pricing structure is not good. And, while some
may be willing to pay their fees, other clearly are not. Do you
see lisp dominating the PC market? Lisp hasn't taken over, and
there's a short list of potential reasons.


> The cost of an Allegro CL license should be nearly irrelevant to
> most software projects, apart from the ones that are losing money by
> design -- i.e., open source and hobbyist projects.

No. I know you like them and are unable to be objective on this
subject, but despite the very high startup costs to get the environment,
you must also pay a substantial percentage of your gross profits when
you distribute software written with their product. Also, there will
be high fees if you run a server written with their product. For the
kinds of software it seems you do, these may not be major roadblocks.
For what I want to do, it's basically unacceptable.


> These have the
> ability to use the free Allegro CL Trial edition until they figure
> out that they need to make money.

No. You may not be aware, but that is a limited version, unless'
you are not interested in targeting windows, and these differ
anyways.


> Wanting more for less is quite universal,

yep.

> but thinking that it gives
> those who want more than they get for less than they like a right to
> call someone else's desire for same "unworkable" _unilaterally_ is
> just plain stupid:

No, eric, what's stupid is your desire to defend something which is
working for you in particular, while it may be good for you, and
not good for someone else.

I have as much right to point out problems with pricing and distribution
fees as you have to insult people for asking reasonable questions.

Another fact to consider for perspective is that there are other options;
LWW is *vastly* cheaper and doesn't charge distribution fees. Maybe
I would consider ACL more workable if it was the only option.
However, it is not.


> Your demands as a cheap customer is just as
> "unworkable" to a vendor as you think their pricing is to you. This
> goes for _everything_ in _any_ market.

That's a pretty stupid statement ( again ). LWW uses a perfectly
reasonable pricing structure, and I have paid for it. Apparently
they feel that non draconian pricing isn't "unreasonable." In fact,
franz is the only compiler vendor which I can think of off hand which
requires distribution fees for apps compiled with their product.
I didn't get their stuff largely because of their pricing structure, which

is my right for anything_in_any_market. :)


dave


Rainer Joswig

unread,
May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
to
In article <31675471...@naggum.no>, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.no>
wrote:

> * Rainer Joswig <rainer...@ision.net>
> | Minus the price of ACL to be able to run it.
>
> Geez, _that's_ an intelligent counter-argument. Can you please be
> explicit and explain your real beef with Franz Inc?

It's hopeless Mr. Naggum - I'm not going to argue
with you.

--
Rainer Joswig, Technical Director, BU Partner,

ISION Internet AG, Steinhöft 9, 20459 Hamburg, Germany

Erik Naggum

unread,
May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
to
* David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org>

| And, while some may be willing to pay their fees, other clearly are
| not. Do you see lisp dominating the PC market? Lisp hasn't taken
| over, and there's a short list of potential reasons.

What else do you know about that is not dominating the PC market?

| I know you like them and are unable to be objective on this subject,

Wrong. I'm not you, so you should be careful about extrapolating
your own problems with being objective to me and others.



| but despite the very high startup costs to get the environment, you
| must also pay a substantial percentage of your gross profits when
| you distribute software written with their product.

I know their policies better than you do (partly because I argue
with Franz Inc over them all the time :) and I can tell you this:
You do not get a right to post hurtful lies about people just
because you disagree with them. If you had to pay for the cost of
recovering from people believing your lies, you would be run into
the ground financially. Relax and make the effort to engage your
_brain_ when you read the license. Above all, don't let emotional
responses like "they're taking my food money!" overpower your
reading skills and comprehension. Franz Inc is _not_ the IRS.

| Also, there will be high fees if you run a server written with their
| product. For the kinds of software it seems you do, these may not
| be major roadblocks. For what I want to do, it's basically
| unacceptable.

Your behavior towards me now and towards Franz Inc is unacceptable
no matter how free it is, so clearly, money is _not_ an issue for
you to behave morally reprehensibly. Guess what: Other people don't
change their behavior when they start to charge money for it, either.

| No, eric, what's stupid is your desire to defend something which is
| working for you in particular, while it may be good for you, and not
| good for someone else.

That's "Erik". I'm not _defending_ anything, I'm deflecting unfair
criticism. These are two very different tasks, but only people who
care about fairness realize the fundamental difference. I was
showing you that being unilateral in such an issue is bad, but that
was also before I knew what kind of person you are: You're the kind
of person who thinks that when you work with or like someone, you
lose your objectivity and you start to defend them as people, no
matter what they _do_. In my eyes, that means you are not the kind
of person _anyone_ should be working with. (Which also explains why
you can't afford to pay for a license, but I digress.)

| I have as much right to point out problems with pricing and
| distribution fees as you have to insult people for asking reasonable
| questions.

But you think you have much wider rights to insult people than I
ever _imagined_ I had! I don't protest your right to point out
problems. I point out a problem with the way you did it: That when
you do so in unilateral ways, you're setting yourself up to be shot
down because you're _unfair_ in your criticism. I crack down on
unfairness wherever and whenever I see it and I think I can make a
difference and whoever the perpetrator is, even when it's our
beloved government. However, I think it's crucial to be fair when
cracking down on unfairness and so I crack down publicly when the
unfairness is public and privately when it is unfairness is private.
Being unfair in public because of private gripes about pricing or
policy is simply _unacceptable_. (No, it doesn't matter what you
think _I'm_ doing. _You_ don't get better by finding somebody else
you can throw dirt at.)

| > Your demands as a cheap customer is just as
| > "unworkable" to a vendor as you think their pricing is to you. This
| > goes for _everything_ in _any_ market.
|
| That's a pretty stupid statement ( again ).

You're proving to me that you're seriously lacking in objectivity,
which is probably why you think others have to be similarly
crippled. Why are you hurting yourself by proving this?

| In fact, franz is the only compiler vendor which I can think of off
| hand which requires distribution fees for apps compiled with their
| product.

What you can think of off hand or not is really nobody's business
when you are as unable to think as you have demonstrated so far.

| I didn't get their stuff largely because of their pricing structure,
| which is my right for anything_in_any_market. :)

Of course it is. But you're doing the sour grapes thing by slamming
the people whose products you didn't want to buy, and that is _not_
a right you have or can assume will be defended. If you don't want
a product, actually _go_ elsewhere, don't linger and pout, OK?

FWIW, I'm in constant talks with Franz Inc about ways to minimize
the cost of licensing for small clients until they make real money.
I have one customer who thinks just having to _discuss_ licensing
terms is a serious turn-off, while money is not: They're paying
_much_ more to Oracle for their database application and the ODBC
drivers cost an arm and a leg, too. My biggest client is a serious
Sun and Oracle outfit and the Franz Inc license costs are not even a
blip in the budget. And we're already paying 50 times these costs a
year to Microsoft for _their_ software and various development tools.

So I wonder: Who do you people think you're kidding? Business costs
are supposed to be passed on to the _custumers_, and if not, to be
assumed by your shareholders or other investors when you fold or get
acquired by (more) competent people. You're supposed to make money
by being cleverer than the average bear, not lose it. If you can't
make enough money to pay a license fee, that means not even your
_investors_ believe in you! Don't take that out on Franz Inc, for
crying out loud.

What the software industry lacks is an easy way to go from hobbyist
to real software developer in outfits that have real money to spend.
As it is, we're looking at a very serious change of mindset and that
will necessarily create much needless hostility, but when people who
tend towards unfairness as a solution to their problems think they
have a _right_ to engage in it because they disagree over pricing or
licensing terms, there is no hope that they will grow a clue in the
foreseeable future, either.

Tim Bradshaw

unread,
May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
to
* David Hanley wrote:

> Well, there's 2 issues. I'm not slamming their ethics personally,

> I'm just saying their pricing structure is not good. And, while some


> may be willing to pay their fees, other clearly are not. Do you
> see lisp dominating the PC market? Lisp hasn't taken over, and
> there's a short list of potential reasons.

Well, I hate to point out flaws in your logic, but since (you imply I
think, I don't actually know the prices of either product) LispWorks
is much cheaper than Franz's offering, and Lisp still hasn't taken
over, it can't be to do with pricing as far as I can see.

I think a much more plausible reason is that Lisp is a language which
requires a good deal of sophistication to appreciate, and that the
educational system is just dismally failing to produce people with the
sophistication to get it. So let's do something positive and try and
fix *that* problem: go teach someone Lisp today!

--tim


David Hanley

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May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
to

Erik Naggum wrote:


> | but despite the very high startup costs to get the environment, you
> | must also pay a substantial percentage of your gross profits when
> | you distribute software written with their product.
>
> I know their policies better than you do (partly because I argue
> with Franz Inc over them all the time :) and I can tell you this:
> You do not get a right to post hurtful lies about people just
> because you disagree with them.

Erik, since you are accusing me of posting hurtful lies, please either:

1) Point them out, or
2) Admit you don't know what you're talking about.

Since all the rest of your post is your usual uninformed drool,
and not at all responding to what I said, I'm just ignoring it, and
waiting for someone to respond to what I actually did say.

dave


Erik Naggum

unread,
May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
to
* Rainer Joswig <rainer...@ision.net>

| It's hopeless Mr. Naggum - I'm not going to argue with you.

Thank you for confirming that you have a _personal_ problem with
Franz Inc, which means we can expect more of the same and none of
the anticipated, but not expected, reasoning that would limit the
future amount of slander and negative propaganda against them.

Erik Naggum

unread,
May 17, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/17/00
to
* David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org>

| Erik Naggum wrote:
|
|
| > | but despite the very high startup costs to get the environment, you
| > | must also pay a substantial percentage of your gross profits when
| > | you distribute software written with their product.
| >
| > I know their policies better than you do (partly because I argue
| > with Franz Inc over them all the time :) and I can tell you this:
| > You do not get a right to post hurtful lies about people just
| > because you disagree with them.
|
| Erik, since you are accusing me of posting hurtful lies, please either:
|
| 1) Point them out, or
| 2) Admit you don't know what you're talking about.

And what will you do when it has been pointed out? Will you shut up
and actually _stop_ lying and slandering people? I didn't think so.

"You must pay a substantial percentage of your gross profits" is a
lie, pure and simple. It would be a lie without "substantial", and
it would be a lie without "gross". It is of course a lie with the
"must", as there are (a little too many) options on how to become a
value added reseller or purchase an unlimited or number of runtime
licenses with or without a compiler and/or development environment.
As stated, the unequivocal

Furthermore, "when you distribute software written with their
product" is a lie. It's not the software _you_ have _written_ with
their product that they charge a license for, it's their own, which
_you_ ship with _your_ product. There is nothing at all in the
license which prohibits writing the software with Allegro CL and
shipping with something else. There couldn't be. Theirs is a
commercial software license, not the GNU Public License, which
_does_ incur such requirements as you seem to find "unworkable".

You are a despicable liar, David Henley, but that's no surprise.

| Since all the rest of your post is your usual uninformed drool, and
| not at all responding to what I said, I'm just ignoring it, and
| waiting for someone to respond to what I actually did say.

I see. Your intellectual policy is to pretend that you have really
awful enemies so you don't have to think, care, or be fair to them.
That's why you have to make Franz Inc much worse than they really
are, too. This is called "demonization" and is a common "problem"
with certain mental illnesses, such as rabid paranoia, "rabid" not
being a clinical term, but applicable nonetheless. Pleas find a
mental health professional willing to lsiten and just get yourself
cured, David -- this has nothing to do with Lisp, me, Franz Inc, or
anything else even remotely connected to this newsgroup, anymore.

Rainer Joswig

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
In article <31675929...@naggum.no>, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.no>
wrote:

> * Rainer Joswig <rainer...@ision.net>


> | It's hopeless Mr. Naggum - I'm not going to argue with you.
>
> Thank you for confirming that you have a _personal_ problem with
> Franz Inc, which means we can expect more of the same and none of
> the anticipated, but not expected, reasoning that would limit the
> future amount of slander and negative propaganda against them.

It's hopeless Mr. Naggum - I'm not going to argue with you.

--

Robert Monfera

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to

Erik Naggum wrote to David Hanley:

> | but despite the very high startup costs to get the environment, you
> | must also pay a substantial percentage of your gross profits when
> | you distribute software written with their product.

> [...] You do not get a right to post hurtful lies about people just


> because you disagree with them. If you had to pay for the cost of
> recovering from people believing your lies, you would be run into
> the ground financially.

I don't think David Hanley's comments are hurtful to anybody other than
himself. There is an implied "IMHO" before all subjective, relativistic
opinions (very high costs etc.). Customers and potential buyers just do
not pay attention to agenda-loaded blanket statements about vendors or
products. There is no need to lend credibility to otherwise ignored
utterance.

Robert

at ncal point verio point com x@x.x tom

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.no> writes:
> The cost of [a commercial Lisp implementation] license should be

> nearly irrelevant to most software projects, apart from the ones
> that are losing money by design -- i.e., open source and hobbyist
> projects.

In my experience, the cost of language implementations is very
important for their adoption in industry. Most new tools are tried
out on small side-projects first, and usually by R&D organizations (as
opposed to product organizations) on fixed budgets. If you can only
get a full version for several thousand dollars per developer, the
system is usually not even going to make it in the door, and any form
of runtime license usually just kills it.

Also keep in mind that the competition from free and cheap software is
really tough. Python is an excellent dynamic language with lots of
libraries, and it's completely free. Java comes with one of the most
extensive standard libraries, good reflection capabilities, and good
enterprise support, and it's also essentially free. And while VB is
iffy as a language, it comes with a good environment and does have
most of the dynamic language features most normal programmers will
ever need, and VB is also quite cheap.

Tom.

William Deakin

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
tom wrote:

> ...If you can only get a full version for several thousand dollars per


> developer, the system is usually not even going to make it in the door,
> and any form of runtime license usually just kills it.

Do you know this to be the actual cost of a `full version' of the software
(particularly if you have more a single user licence) or is this a bit
more of `lisp is dead' sinmply packaged in a new more subtle way?

> Also keep in mind that the competition from free and cheap software is

> really tough. [...elided an excellent and representive list of other
> software...]

Is this the market that people who use cl are in? I'm not sure that it
is. I think cl is *not* in direct competition with these mass market
language. However, just because every man and his dog is not using cl[1],
it is still (IMHO) thriving in the niche where quality, reliablity,
elegance and intelligence are highly regarded,

Best Regards,

:) will

[1] although *maybe* they ought.


Erik Naggum

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
* Rainer Joswig <rainer...@ision.net>
| It's hopeless Mr. Naggum - I'm not going to argue with you.

But you are. If you didn't want to argue, you could just be
so kind as to refrain from slander and negative propaganda.

#:erik

Rainer Joswig

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
In article <31676425...@naggum.no>, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.no>
wrote:

> * Rainer Joswig <rainer...@ision.net>


> | It's hopeless Mr. Naggum - I'm not going to argue with you.
>
> But you are. If you didn't want to argue, you could just be
> so kind as to refrain from slander and negative propaganda.

Come on Mr. Naggum, waste others people time.

Erik Naggum

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
* Rainer Joswig <rainer...@ision.net>

| Come on Mr. Naggum, waste others people time.

Wouldn't you love that? But it's quite simple: You explain what
your _real_ problem with Franz Inc is, instead of continuing to
slander them and hurting the entire Lisp community by causing
unnecessary animosity between developer groups, and we don't need
that. You're _really_ wasting people's time when you do it.

#;Erik

Marc Battyani

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to

Tim Bradshaw <t...@cley.com> wrote in message
news:ey3wvks...@cley.com...

> I think a much more plausible reason is that Lisp is a language which
> requires a good deal of sophistication to appreciate, and that the
> educational system is just dismally failing to produce people with the
> sophistication to get it. So let's do something positive and try and
> fix *that* problem: go teach someone Lisp today!

Yes there is a problem with how universities teach Lisp.
I recently converted to lisp a friend that had been teached lisp in
university and was convinced, like almost everybody, that lisp were only
good to write toy software like elisa or research software.
Now he is throwing out his C++ to write industrial software in lisp.
So C++-- (who said infix syntax is pretty ?) and (incf lisp) ; nicer syntax

Marc Battyani

Rainer Joswig

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
In article <31676474...@naggum.no>, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.no>
wrote:

> Wouldn't you love that? But it's quite simple: You explain what


> your _real_ problem with Franz Inc is, instead of continuing to
> slander them and hurting the entire Lisp community by causing
> unnecessary animosity between developer groups, and we don't need
> that. You're _really_ wasting people's time when you do it.

You are obviously dreaming. Please waste other people's time.

Erik Naggum

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
* Rainer Joswig <rainer...@ision.net>

| Please waste other people's time.

If I can waste your time so you don't continue to slander people and
companies and create unnecessary animosity between developer groups,
that's a _very_ good thing in my view. So, I'm glad your time is
wastable with such simple means.

David Hanley

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to

Erik Naggum wrote:

> * David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org>
> | Erik Naggum wrote:
> |
> |

> | > | but despite the very high startup costs to get the environment, you
> | > | must also pay a substantial percentage of your gross profits when
> | > | you distribute software written with their product.
> | >
> | > I know their policies better than you do (partly because I argue
> | > with Franz Inc over them all the time :) and I can tell you this:
> | > You do not get a right to post hurtful lies about people just
> | > because you disagree with them.
> |

> | Erik, since you are accusing me of posting hurtful lies, please either:
> |
> | 1) Point them out, or
> | 2) Admit you don't know what you're talking about.
>
> And what will you do when it has been pointed out? Will you shut up
> and actually _stop_ lying and slandering people? I didn't think so.

Well, if you were smart enough to make a point, yes I would.
However, I am still waiting.

>
>
> "You must pay a substantial percentage of your gross profits" is a
> lie, pure and simple. It would be a lie without "substantial", and
> it would be a lie without "gross".

Um, fine, but they're both in there.

still waiting for a response from the mental midget(you).

dave


David Hanley

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to

Erik Naggum wrote:

> * Rainer Joswig <rainer...@ision.net>
> | Come on Mr. Naggum, waste others people time.
>

> Wouldn't you love that? But it's quite simple: You explain what
> your _real_ problem with Franz Inc is, instead of continuing to
> slander them and hurting the entire Lisp community by causing

> unnecessary animosity between developer groups,

Oh, yeah, I couldn't imagine a lisp developer causing unneeded
animosity.

dave


Jeff Dalton

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org> writes:

> Erik Naggum wrote:
>
> > "You must pay a substantial percentage of your gross profits" is a
> > lie, pure and simple. It would be a lie without "substantial", and
> > it would be a lie without "gross".
>
> Um, fine, but they're both in there.

Let me paraphrase.

He said the quoted statement "is a lie, pure and simple" with both of
them "in there", and then he added that it would remain a lie if
"substantial" (x?)or "gross" were taken out.

- j

Erik Naggum

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
* David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org>

| Well, if you were smart enough to make a point, yes I would.
| However, I am still waiting.

Are you holding your breath? That would help.

Rainer Joswig

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
In article <31676525...@naggum.no>, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.no>
wrote:

> * Rainer Joswig <rainer...@ision.net>


> | Please waste other people's time.
>
> If I can waste your time so you don't continue to slander people and
> companies and create unnecessary animosity between developer groups,
> that's a _very_ good thing in my view. So, I'm glad your time is
> wastable with such simple means.

Sure, Sure, Mr.Naggum, tell me more about your mother.

David Hanley

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to

Erik Naggum wrote:

> * David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org>
> | Well, if you were smart enough to make a point, yes I would.
> | However, I am still waiting.
>
> Are you holding your breath? That would help.

No, i'll let the moronic childishness be purely your tool.

dave


David Hanley

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to

Jeff Dalton wrote:

Then failed to back it up. Typical.

dave


Erik Naggum

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
* David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org>

| No, i'll let the moronic childishness be purely your tool.

I'm sometimes impressed with the ability of some people to work
themselves into a frenzy over fairly simple questions and arguments.
And sometimes I'm not. The inability of some people to focus on
anything but _persons_ is fairly unimpressive, for instance, and
when it's people they don't know, but instead constantly demonize,
it's also fairly uninspiring. I'm glad David does this to himself,
however, and there is very little point in helping him, now.

David Hanley

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to

Erik Naggum wrote:

> * David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org>
> | No, i'll let the moronic childishness be purely your tool.
>
> I'm sometimes impressed with the ability of some people to work
> themselves into a frenzy over fairly simple questions and arguments.

That's ironic, considering that you have been been making long
angry posts based on my dislike of a pricing strunctutre, and
I have been stringing you along with tiny replies.

dave


Erik Naggum

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to
* David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org>

| That's ironic, considering that you have been been making long
| angry posts based on my dislike of a pricing strunctutre, and
| I have been stringing you along with tiny replies.

If you weren't so self-servingly delusional, you'd be amusing.
Go see a doctor, now.

Jon S Anthony

unread,
May 18, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/18/00
to


Well, being another Franz customer and having had many discussions with
them on this point as well, I will back him up: you are just plain
wrong.

/Jon

--
Jon Anthony
Synquiry Technologies, Ltd. Belmont, MA 02478, 617.484.3383
"Nightmares - Ha! The way my life's been going lately,
Who'd notice?" -- Londo Mollari

Christopher Browne

unread,
May 19, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/19/00
to
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Erik Naggum would say:

>* Rainer Joswig <rainer...@ision.net>
>| Please waste other people's time.
>
> If I can waste your time so you don't continue to slander people and
> companies and create unnecessary animosity between developer groups,
> that's a _very_ good thing in my view. So, I'm glad your time is
> wastable with such simple means.

Could you "squalling brats" _PLEASE_ take your "waste of time" to
email, where it won't trouble the rest of us?

Sometimes, my .sigmonster picks something incredibly more appropriate
than anything I would have _tried_ to choose myself; this is one of
those occasions...
--
This program posts news to billions of machines throughout the galaxy.
Your message will cost the net enough to bankrupt your entire planet.
As a result your species will be sold into slavery. Be sure you know
what you are doing. Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? [yn]
y
cbbr...@hex.net- <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>

Christopher Browne

unread,
May 19, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/19/00
to
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Robert Monfera would say:
>"Andrew K. Wolven" wrote:
>> Mallery isn't doing anything for the benefit of the Lisp Community itself,
>> and
>> is only alienating supporters if he thinks I am going to make any customer
>> cough up more than two hundred bucks for CL-HTTP when Apache is free.
>
>If $200 is big money for a web server for your customers, then I don't
>envy you, but supposedly your talent can add a lot of value to it (embed
>the web server in an application, for example), and help you make decent
>money. Or is it that you can't get the clients to pay for anything?

Sometimes it's appallingly remarkable what clients are unwilling to
pay for...

The _problem_ is that with the availability of Apache, for free, and
Boa, for free, and Roxen Challenger, for free, and AOLserver, for
free, Zope, for free, IIS :-), for free, and probably a bunch of other
options, _for free_, a lot of people look pretty funny at the notion
of charging anything much for a web server.

Sure, Apple's WebObjects is pretty expensive; of course, it appears to
have dropped from $50K to $700, which is suggestive that declining web
server prices are the norm rather than than the abnorm.

I agree that $200 isn't all that much, but it's sure not unusual for
web servers to be priced vastly lower than that.

>As for the CL-HTTP license, I think that a meaningful commercial license
>(maybe along with an alternative, unsupported OS license) would be
>preferable, but I don't think it would make a difference for you, as you
>are clearly out of your medication.

The problem with the CL-HTTP license doesn't seem to me to be the
price, but rather the fact that the licensing is fairly vague.

If I wanted to build a derivative of CL-HTTP, and redistribute it, it
may be reasonably likely that it will be fine with the authors for me
to do so, perhaps at some fee, but it seems evident that there's not a
"pricing sheet" on how to do it. I'd essentially have to pre-arrange
terms individually with the authors.

The uncertainty that is entailed is discouraging.

I can't speak for Wolven's meds :-).
--
Rules of the Evil Overlord #140. "I will instruct my guards when
checking a cell that appears empty to look for the chamber pot. If the
chamber pot is still there, then the prisoner has escaped and they may
enter and search for clues. If the chamber pot is not there, then
either the prisoner is perched above the lintel waiting to strike them
with it or else he decided to take it as a souvenir (in which case he
is obviously deeply disturbed and poses no threat). Either way,
there's no point in entering." <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>
cbbr...@ntlug.org- <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>

Christopher Browne

unread,
May 19, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/19/00
to
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Marc Battyani would say:

The problem is that the typical way of teaching Lisp (or Scheme)
seems to be as a _part_ of a course, often on comparative programming
languages.

If all you spend on the course is three weeks, there's hardly room
to touch on anything other than LET, LAMBDA, DO, CAR, and CDR. With
a few arithmetic operations thrown in to make it look as if you're
doing something useful. And probably ASSOC.

The obvious conclusion from that sort of introduction is that:
--> Even BASIC has arrays. Much better than lists for any nontrivial
work.
--> C has structs; the only way to simulate that in Lisp is via
those horribly inefficient association lists.
--> I/O? What's I/O?

You _don't_ get around to VECTORs, DEFINE-STRUCTURE, or LOOP in the
typical course.

Students tend to get the gist of what they're taught; when they're
taught that the only point to Lisp is to have a section in a course
where you do useless things with it, it _must_ be pretty useless.

This is _exactly_ where all the "driveby flamings" tend to come from.

[There haven't been any lately; it appears that the masochists, missing
their floggings, have taken to pointless verbal abuse usually involving
someone and Erik Naggum, flaming one another. Perhaps comp.lang.lisp
needs a good attack by some really clueless proponent of C++...]
--
"No matter how much money you spend, you can't make a racehorse out of
a pig. You can, however, make an awfully fast pig."
-- An old saying about program efficiency
cbbr...@hex.net - - <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>

Erik Naggum

unread,
May 19, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/19/00
to
* Christopher Browne

| Could you "squalling brats" _PLEASE_ take your "waste of time" to
| email, where it won't trouble the rest of us?

Why didn't you mail us your helpful suggestion?

You don't have to answer, just _think_ about it.

Marco Antoniotti

unread,
May 19, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/19/00
to

cbbr...@knuth.brownes.org (Christopher Browne) writes:

....

> The obvious conclusion from that sort of introduction is that:
> --> Even BASIC has arrays. Much better than lists for any nontrivial
> work.
> --> C has structs; the only way to simulate that in Lisp is via
> those horribly inefficient association lists.
> --> I/O? What's I/O?
>
> You _don't_ get around to VECTORs, DEFINE-STRUCTURE, or LOOP in the

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
#+noise-on

DEFINE-STRUCTURE does not quite exist! (I mean, in the "standard"
documents)
CL has DEFSTRUCT, Scheme has ....... what does Scheme have? :)

Cheers

--
Marco Antoniotti ===========================================

Jeff Dalton

unread,
May 19, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/19/00
to
cbbr...@knuth.brownes.org (Christopher Browne) writes:

> >Yes there is a problem with how universities teach Lisp. [...]

> The problem is that the typical way of teaching Lisp (or Scheme)
> seems to be as a _part_ of a course, often on comparative programming
> languages.

True, but even courses devoted to Lisp can give students a misleading
impression of the language.

Some trivial signs that Lisp is likely to end up looking bad: "Lisp" is
written as "LISP"; RPLACA and RPLACD get an earlier or more prominent
mention than SETF; you're told that EQ is only for comparing atoms
(or symbols); EQ is first introduced in a discussion of destructive
modification of lists; you're told that in Lisp "everything is a
list"; Lisp is called "an interpreted language"; Lisp is called "an AI
language"; you're given the impression that no one likes Lisp's syntax
but they put up with it in order to get the programming environment or
because it makes macros easy; the instructor keep apologising for
Lisp's syntax or for its use of names such as LAMBDA, COND, CAR, and
CDR; you're told that "CAR" stands for (rather than originally stood
for) "Contents of Address Register".

One of the worst problems, I think, is that courses often fail to get
students to understand Lisp data as objects, "objects" meaning that
they have an identity, live in their own storage, and so on (rather
than that they're instances of classes). From that, it will make
sense - in the sense that it forms a coherent picture - that procedure
calls and assignments don't copy, that EQ and EQL can test object
identity, that it's possible to determine the type of an object at
run-time, that types are primarily associated with objects rather
than variables or other places where (refs to) objects are stored;
that hash tables can make connections between particular objects;
that lists, arrays, etc, can contain arbitrary objects rather than
being specialised to some particular element type; that it's easy
to implement simple O-O "extensions"; and so on.

But courses that just do list processing in Lisp never get there.

> Students tend to get the gist of what they're taught; when they're
> taught that the only point to Lisp is to have a section in a course
> where you do useless things with it, it _must_ be pretty useless.

Yes, and when students are required to use Lisp and find it an
unpleasant experience, they tend to resent it, and this can turn
into an active dislike of the language.

> This is _exactly_ where all the "driveby flamings" tend to come from.

I think so too, in many cases at least.

Joe Marshall

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May 19, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/19/00
to
cbbr...@knuth.brownes.org (Christopher Browne) writes:

> --> C has structs; the only way to simulate that in Lisp is via
> those horribly inefficient association lists.

Alists? What are those? My first lisp course covered propertly lists
on symbols.....

--
~jrm

David Rush

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May 19, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/19/00
to
William Deakin <wi...@pindar.com> writes:
> tom wrote:
> > ...If you can only get a full version for several thousand dollars per
> > developer, the system is usually not even going to make it in the door,
> > and any form of runtime license usually just kills it.
>
> Do you know this to be the actual cost of a `full version' of the software
> (particularly if you have more a single user licence) or is this a bit
> more of `lisp is dead' sinmply packaged in a new more subtle way?

Well, it's sure what killed Smalltalk. $4000/seat dev license +
non-trivial runtimes made it very clear that the only adopters were
religious ones.

> > Also keep in mind that the competition from free and cheap software is
> > really tough. [...elided an excellent and representive list of other
> > software...]

Java nailed the coffin shut on Smalltalk just as people were getting
fed up enough with the-language-that-shall-not-be-named to start
thinking about switching. I was there. It was a sorry sight.

> However, just because every man and his dog is not using cl[1],
> it is still (IMHO) thriving in the niche where quality, reliablity,
> elegance and intelligence are highly regarded,

In short, a rapidly shrinking one.

david rush
--
And Visual Basic programmers should be paid minimum wage :)
-- Jeffrey Straszheim (on comp.lang.functional)

David Rush

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May 19, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/19/00
to

Tim Bradshaw

unread,
May 20, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/20/00
to
* David Rush wrote:
> William Deakin <wi...@pindar.com> writes:

>> However, just because every man and his dog is not using cl[1],
>> it is still (IMHO) thriving in the niche where quality, reliablity,
>> elegance and intelligence are highly regarded,

> In short, a rapidly shrinking one.

I don't think it's shrinking, why do you?

--tim

Robert Monfera

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May 20, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/20/00
to

Christopher Browne wrote:

> >If $200 is big money for a web server [...]

> Sometimes it's appallingly remarkable what clients are unwilling to
> pay for...

A tested approach (with software definitely more expensive than $200) is
to build the costs into your pricing - whether you are hired to roll out
a product or are a consultant with an hourly rate. The point I made is
that if there is satisfactory cash flow to keep you happy, finding the
money for tools should not be a problem. in what commercial scenario do
you think there is an _unwillingness_ to pay? Who are those _clients_?

> The _problem_ is that with the availability of Apache, for free, and
> Boa, for free, and Roxen Challenger, for free, and AOLserver, for
> free, Zope, for free, IIS :-), for free, and probably a bunch of other
> options, _for free_, a lot of people look pretty funny at the notion
> of charging anything much for a web server.

You can get commercial support for Apache from IBM and maybe others, and
I don't think it's free.

> I agree that $200 isn't all that much, but it's sure not unusual for
> web servers to be priced vastly lower than that.

$200 is the cost of 1..5 developer hours in the USA. Think of how much
is spent on other unix Software or Microsoft-ware, or on those
queen-of-the-self CASE tools.

> The problem with the CL-HTTP license doesn't seem to me to be the
> price, but rather the fact that the licensing is fairly vague.

Yes, this is what I meant. As someone described it here: you would have
to work with a lawyer to be able to use it (at a time I guessed it's 2
mandays of work with the lawyer and the author(s)).

Robert

Robert Monfera

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May 20, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/20/00
to

David Rush wrote:

> > However, just because every man and his dog is not using cl[1],
> > it is still (IMHO) thriving in the niche where quality, reliablity,
> > elegance and intelligence are highly regarded,
>
> In short, a rapidly shrinking one.

You are so vague it's almost like you did not say anything. For
example, are you thinking in absolute or relative terms?

Absolute: I can't speak for everybody, but my experiences tell it's
modestly growing. Choice of language does not matter as much now that
there are interoperability standards like Corba, HTTP and SQL, and that
the competition among C(++), Java, Visual Basic, scripting and "4GL"
languages erodes the notion of which language is the only politically
correct choice.

>
> david rush
> --
> And Visual Basic programmers should be paid minimum wage :)
> -- Jeffrey Straszheim (on comp.lang.functional)

I didn't know they don't make at least that much. Does it mean it's
illegal to program in Visual Basic? Maybe it's like farming - the less
you produce, the more you are paid.

Robert

Ingvar Mattsson

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May 20, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/20/00
to
David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org> writes:

> Jeff Dalton wrote:
>
> > David Hanley <d...@ncgr.org> writes:
> >
> > > Erik Naggum wrote:
> > >
> > > > "You must pay a substantial percentage of your gross profits" is a
> > > > lie, pure and simple. It would be a lie without "substantial", and
> > > > it would be a lie without "gross".
> > >
> > > Um, fine, but they're both in there.
> >
> > Let me paraphrase.
> >
> > He said the quoted statement "is a lie, pure and simple" with both of
> > them "in there", and then he added that it would remain a lie if
> > "substantial" (x?)or "gross" were taken out.
>
> Then failed to back it up. Typical.

It depends a bit on how you sell the resulting code. Sell it as source
code, for further customer development (a nice, but perhaps unworkable
commercial model?), with or without strings attached: Franz'll say
nothing.

Sell it compiled, with a Franz runtime included: cheaper than selling
it with at least one commercial transaction monitor.

Sell it as FASL files: Ask Franz.

With at least one sales model including "no payment to Franz" and at
least one being no more expensive than other, comparable,
situations...

//Ingvar (aigh! I'm defending Erik!)
--
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, it is by
the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands
acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning, it is by
caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. <dr...@aber.ac.uk?>

Erik Naggum

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May 20, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/20/00
to
* Ingvar Mattsson <gr...@algonet.se>

| //Ingvar (aigh! I'm defending Erik!)

Wrong. You're not defending _me_. You're not agreeing with _me_,
either. You're defending something you, too, believe to be true,
quite independently of me or that I agree with _you_. If you have
to subordinate your defense of truth or what you believe in to who
else believes it, I seriously suggest you rethink your value system.

It is as bogus to defend _people_ because of what they say or do as
it is to attack _people_ because of what they say or do. Those who
confuse them naturally feel attacked or defended personally because
of what they say or do, and that complicates things immensely when
you want to praise or criticize opinions or actions. Let's mature
beyond such _unwarranted_ feelings of personal closeness and instead
concentrate on ideas and actions -- that way, people who have said
or done something can be praised or criticized without affecting
their ego, and they can remain free to say or do something else. If
we focus on people, we lock them into what they have said and have
done, and restrict their freedom to change their mind and their ways.

This is not to say that personal like or dislike is immaterial, but
there is much evidence to suggest that human psyche is unable to
deal with more than a handful of _personal_ relationships, and that
there is a good reason for professional conduct instead of personal
conduct, and thus of limiting one's like or dislike to the relevant
aspects of whoever you're dealing with. Those who are forced beyond
their limits get into serious trouble, such as nurses who "bond"
with patients or prostitutes, to take but two well-known examples.

Personal relationships are _very_ valuable, and they create a very
valuable emotion: that of personal obligations. Do not waste them
on people you don't know -- it _will_ hurt you and others may not
appreciate the implicit obligations, either.

With that serious matter out of the way, I appreciate that you took
the time to help me set the record straight. You have no obligation
to continue to help me, and I hope nobody attacks you for anything
you could only be assumed to agree with, but on USENET, people who
fail completely to distinguish between the action and whoever acts
_have_ been known to fail in other ways, as well.

Will Deakin

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May 22, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/22/00
to
Bijan Parsia wrote:
>Oh yeah. Apple's dead too. :)
Be careful or somebody may accuse you of sarcasm,

;) will


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