[usocket-devel] Your CL sockets API paper

[Erik Huelsmann]

Hi Dave,

I found your December 2005 paper on a general sockets API for Lisp at
http://www.findinglisp.com/papers/sockets-analysis-0-2-5.pdf.
Interesting reading for someone working on exactly that topic.

You're saying there that there's a lot to be desired in Lisp sockets
and I agree. Though you also claim that UDP is not feasible in many
lisp implementations. I have to disagree there: I'm working on
usocket, a minimal sockets portability library. Minimal in the sense
that I try to keep the layer between the implementation and the
application as thin as possible to prevent as much overhead as
possible. When you're interested, you can find my analysis on
providing UDP sockets on all supported implementations but LispWorks
at http://trac.common-lisp.net/usocket/wiki/DatagramSockets.

I'm currently working on implementing a multiplexing model other than
blocking threads (important!). After that I'll proceed to UDP. From
there on I'll go the socket options and shutdown route.

I hope you'll follow the usocket project with interest and I'm hoping
for any comments you can provide.

bye,


Erik.