[cl-dwim-devel] web app for the CIEV book database

[Kambiz Darabi]

Hello,

I strangely didn't receive Ebzzry's original mail. Did it appear on
the list?

Anyway: ebzzry, I'm the person mentioned by Attila in his mail. I have
started to use dwim and I think it is an extremely valuable framework
for creating web applications.

I am not a lisp wizard, although I have programmed real-world
applications in lisp in the past (late 1980s :).


>> Here is a small summary of my observations with regards to the
>> dependencies that I tried to pull/fetch.
>> [...]
>>
>> What's the easiest and most straightforward to setup cl-dwim? Aside
>> from pulling the dependencies you listed, what are other things to
>> read and/or remember?

Initially, I set up a mercurial repository, which is used to version
our code PLUS everything pulled from the darcs repos of cl-dwim and
friends AND all other dependencies (e.g. dojo).

Until now, my process has been like this:

- pull all dependencies 

- resolve issues with the new versions of the libs with Attila on IRC

- commit and tag the working version into the all encompassing
  mercurial repository


> to (hopefully) prevent some frustration, keep this in mind... the
> framework around cl-dwim is not advertised too much for a reason: it's
> much more headache to set it up than it should be necessary. there are
> two reasons for this: we have deadlines and bills to pay, and some
> parts are too much in flux for spending time on making it easier to
> set up... next month we may rewrite the thing, rendering the setup
> part useless/obsolete (not to mention documentation).

This is true, but the next section applies as well:

> therefore it needs a high level of belief of future rewards to get
> through all the headache of the start. 

which is most important for me! I am positive that the future rewards
after the steep learning curve are huge.

> there's a guy on #lisp who did it (he's kami there, and he's on
> cl-dwim-devel, so probably reading this. he even translated some
> hungarian (!) to strip down for his needs some of our working demos
> we made for a customer). so it's not impossible, but to be honest
> his progress surprised me...

Thank you.

> so, please keep all this in mind, and be on high alert to continuously
> reevaluate your plans. don't misunderstand me, we are very happy for
> users, and we do believe that in the long run using our framework
> yields productivity boost... but it's not an off-the-shelf product.
> the road is a bit bumpy and we know that, we are crashing along on the
> same road... :) so don't haul us up for promises we didn't make.

If there are more people interested in dwim, we could also join
efforts in starting some kind of documentation to ease the
bootstrapping of new users.

I am willing to contribute, but nobody else than the cl-dwim team will
be able to review and correct our findings.

There is already http://www.cliki.net/cl-dwim, which can evolve into
an online resource.

What do you think?


Regards



Kambiz Darabi

PS: I can of course publish our mercurial repository (in any SCM
flavor which might seem advantageous) if that would help others