[hunchentoot-devel] site structure

[Ram Krishnan]

Austin,

We used a similar approach for managing multiple client interfaces, by
creating client-specific directories with one or more Lisp files with
handler code. In our case, we dispatched based on the virtual host name,
using the *META-DISPATCHER* special var.

Where we differed from the approach you wrote about is that we didn't use
ASDF (or DEFSYSTEM) in loading the client specific sections. We used a
simple mapping from the top-level URL prefix to Lisp file, which we just
(load)ed.

For example, if the incoming request was for a "http://foo.com/users/list",
then our *META-DISPATCHER* (which overrides the default) would look up a
dispatch-table for "foo.com", and the default handler in that dispatch-table
would look for a clients/foo.com/users.[ufasl | lisp] in the file-system,
and load that into the running Lisp image. On loading users.ufasl, one or
more explicit handlers for the /users prefix would be inserted into the
dispatch table for subsequent request.

Hope this is useful.

-ram

On 8/21/07, Austin Haas <austin at pettomato.com> wrote:
>
>
> How does one generally structure their source files for a multi-sectioned
> site?
>
> I have a site that has several disparate sections, including:
>
> 1. main page, company information, etc.
> 2. portfolio of past works
> 3. client projects
> 4. various other interactive demos
>
> When I initially setup the project, I put the source files for each
> section into it's own directory, and included it as a module in my main
> defsystem. The main dispatch table would branch from there using
> "create-prefix-dispatcher" and call a "dispatcher" method belonging to the
> appropriate module.
>
> Each client project gets it's own source file and dispatcher, because they
> usually contain many unique sections themselves, such as pages for alpha
> demos, betas, etc. Some also need various dynamic features, too, so it's not
> as if I can just create some template system and pull unique data from a DB.
> I really need to be able to through up entirely new branches to the site on
> a weekly basis.
>
> The main issue that I've faced so far is that I have to add any new files
> to the :components section of the main defsystem method, which is
> inconvenient.
>
> It is very likely that I'm just not understanding the basics of setting up
> a lisp project, but I don't think most projects require the same structure
> as a large website. Please correct me if I'm mistaken.
>
> I'd appreciate any suggestions, pointers, or advice that anyone might
> have.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -austin
>
> --
> Austin Haas
> Pet Tomato, Inc.
> http://pettomato.com
>
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