[Bese-devel] UCW vs Seaside (and Scheme)

[Waldo Rubinstein]

On Sep 3, 2005, at 11:21 AM, Peter Scott wrote:

> On 9/3/05, Waldo Rubinstein <waldo at trianet.net> wrote:
>
>> I'm fairly new to both Lisp and Smalltalk (less than 6 months
>> experience in each). The reason for my interest in these is because I
>> feel, from what I have been reading, that both Seaside and UCW offer
>> more practical solutions to the real-life problems I need to solve
>> for developing web-based custom apps.
>>
>
> For some types of web apps, continuation-based is definitely the  
> way to go.

I'm also fairly new to the theory behind continuations and I  
definitely agree.

>
>
>> I have to say I have spent more time learning about Smalltalk/Seaside
>> than I have invested in Lisp/UCW. However, somehow it feels Lisp/UCW
>> seem to provide a better roadmap and more stable platform.
>>
>
> UCW is still very unstable, with major parts being ripped out and
> replaced as we speak. Common Lisp is very stable, with a wide
> selection of good compilers, both commercial and open-source. UCW is a
> pleasure to work with, for what it's worth---but I haven't checked out
> Seaside.

You may have phrased it better than me. CL is indeed very stable.  
Because I so new to UCW, I haven't had the chance to realize how  
"unstable" UCW may be. I didn't get the impression it's unstable. It  
may be that it's going through aggressive changes, but I wouldn't  
necessarily say it's unstable. I would say that Seaside is also  
evolving rapidly. However, I believe the combination of List/UCW  
offers a more solid roadmap. It could be more because of Lisp's  
"ability" to allowing developers develop better software.

>> Before I spent much time looking into Scheme, I decided to quickly
>> glance at Scheme's support for some of the minimum requirements I
>> have for web app development. For example, I need to access MySQL  
>> and/
>> or Postgres databases as well as the easy manipulation (mainly
>> generation) of PDF and CSV files. Also, I would like to start using
>> object databases more than relational databases. I didn't find much
>> support for these in Scheme. However, I did come across some projects
>> for both Lisp and Smalltalk to support my needs, which brought me
>> back to wanting to learn more about UCW and Seaside.
>>
>
> I can't speak for scheme, but CL has:
>
> CLSQL: a good interface to a number of SQL databases. I'm particularly
> fond of the reader syntax that prevents SQL-injection problems, among
> other inconveniences. There's also an object-relational mapping, but I
> haven't used it so I can't opine on it.
>
> fare-csv: you can import and export CSV in a straightforward way. I
> found some of the code in this one to be a little amusing, but it
> certainly works well enough.

Wasn't aware of this one, although at first glance it looks like it's  
more designed for reading than for writing.

>
> CL-PDF and cl-typesetting: make PDF files easily, and do so with nice
> typesetting.
>
>
>> At this point, I'm wondering if there is anyone in this list that can
>> shed some light into clearing up where I should be going. I've always
>> been fascinated with Lisp, but never spent enough time to learn it.
>> Now that I have some time, I'd like to know where I should be
>> investing my time more wisely (Lisp, Smalltalk, Scheme). I don't know
>> if I should really rule out Scheme and may be someone could also
>> comment on it.
>>
>
> Unless you find some big difference in libraries or tools (I'm a big
> fan of CL's SLIME IDE), the perennial arguments about CL vs. Scheme
> are relevant.
>
> You might also try reading some of the articles linked to in
> <http://bc.tech.coop/blog/041229.html>. They aren't directly related
> to your question, but they may be useful.
>
> -Peter
>

Thanks for the pointers. I spent some time reading the articles in  
that URL and many of its links. I still found no absolute answer.  
However, it has enlightened me in a way to strengthen my ideas that  
Lisp may be better suited for me than Scheme.

Thanks,
Waldo