Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:

I'm curious:

1. Exactly what would implementing a LispSea web site demonstrate?

To an external observer: nothing. An unscrupulous marketer would put a "Powered by Lisp" logo on the website even if it was a complete lie! :-) Who'd know the difference? Within LispSea itself, it would demonstrate the capacity to organize a major project. That's great if you've got web people who want to do it. If it's within the scope of the energy they want to spend. If anyone cares about organizing *major* projects, as opposed to minor projects, or just networking people's personal projects. If accomplished, it would make a good presentation for *other* groups, to get converts. "This is what we did with Lisp." SeaFunc has never attempted to evangelize in other language or technology groups. Having a LispSea website that allows us to database people's bios and interests and other stuff would be useful.

2. What does someone get that they don't have already using well-known tools, servers, and infrastructure services?

3. What makes Lisp killer for web sites?

4. How much is just plain work that has to be done no matter what the server-side technology is? What impact is there on client-side technology? (Ajax, etc.)

This is not something I would have thought is in the Lisp sweet spot. I'm asking because I don't know the answer to these questions and I wonder what is appealing about that case.

I don't know either. I've heard of some web things on comp.lang.lisp, but I'm a web nunce and can't evaluate them. I started identifying stuff when I had a friend who wanted to do an internet dating site and I was going through my CL booster phase. I do think "web apps" are a strategically important market. All the other "slightly enlightened" languages have been popularized because they could do something on the web. Perl, Python, Ruby, it's about the web. Lisp should have its web app and its web books too, so it can compete on the same playing field. I don't think LispSea can accomplish any "web app evangelism" in isolation. People interested in that, would have to partake of some broader, worldwide effort. I don't know the Lisp web landscape or who's offering anything any good. I do know that Python has its Plone, and Ruby has its Rails. If someone wants to head up web stuff, that's great. Someone with the energy to participate in global Lisp web efforts, and use LispSea as a guinea pig. Can't see myself helping to do any of that though. I'm not a web guy, I simply don't care. In fact I bolted from the Seattle Python Interest Group because they were always talking about web and database stuff that bores me to tears. I can see myself writing articles on such a website, or providing 3D demos. Y'all know I like to write. :-) Be aware though: results matter. It's one thing to want a LispSea lisp-based website. It's another thing to get it done. When SeaFunc was confronted with such logistical choices, people hemmed and hawed for 3 days and then I said, "Ok, we're doing a Yahoo! mailing list. Because it works. It works NOW." And nobody's lifted a finger to change anything since then. That was 1.5 years ago. Part of the reason SeaFunc has survived and slowly grown, is we didn't create "big work impediments" to our group's health. I'm all for web projects. They should *NOT* be on the critical path for LispSea's health and growth. Cheers, Brandon Van Every

Justin Grant wrote:

The value is in getting the members of the group involved while writing some Lisp code that has a practical use for us. It doesn't need to be a web app, in fact something else would be a nice change but what would gain more visibility for the group than a web-app we can say was implemented in Lisp itself ? LispSea 3D demos would help very much in this regard for the 'oooh aaahh' effect. They need a place to live though...

Here's my trick for projects. I don't offer to do new projects. I only offer to repurpose the projects I was doing anyways. OpenGL demos, game demos, Lispsea 3D demos, nothing changes for me. I will be doing exactly the same thing if zero other people want to do them. I do think "getting involved" is a good energy and impetus to try to instill in a group. The danger is when it means scaring people off, because they don't want more work than they were doing already. Unless of course you're talking about people with not enough to do that are really looking for a project. Those are about. Perhaps clever people can harness them. I would point out that "getting involved" is a social dimension, and needs no technical requirements at all. People could, for instance, "get involved" by taking a backpacking trip together and talking about Lisp in the woods, devoid of any technology. Or take solar panels and hand crank generators with them, ha ha ha! I would encourage people to think about what "getting involved" can mean in humanistic terms, rather than technological terms. This is why SeaFuncers drink beer. I tried to start a game for Seattle Sputnik IGDA people to play once upon a time. It didn't pan out. But silly community Lisp games are ways of getting people involved. Hm, I think there's I think Jeff Henrickson had a good idea with his live coding sessions. It fell down because there aren't really any other strong OCaml people in SeaFunc. It would be much easier in LispSea to support some canonical CL working environments. Cheers, Brandon Van Every