I just noticed today that one of the tbnl's best features is missing in hunchentoot.
Previously (in tbnl) if you set *debug-mode* to T, the top level dynamic vars *request*, *reply*, etc will be bound to the last request, reply objects.
This is very handy and in line with Lisp's interactive development model.
I usually setup an empty handler and point the browser to that URL.
Now I can work with the *request* / *reply* objects in the REPL, and write html generation and GET/POST handling code interactively.
For instance, I can type these in the REPL
(setf hunchentoot::*session* (hunchentoot::session-verify *request*))
(session-value :selected-product)
"T-Shirt XXL"
(* (product-price *) (session-value :quantity))
15
and so on.
Once I'm satisfied with the result, I put all the code into the handler.
(defun product-total-page (&optional (request *request*)) (let ((p (session-value :selected-product)) (q (session-value :quantity))) (with-html (:html (:body (:table (:tr (:td "Product") (:td (str p))) (:tr (:td "Quantity") (:td (str q))) (:tr (:td "Total") (:td (str (* q (product-price p)))))))))))
This is also very handy for debugging (inspect *request*'s slots - cookies, header and whatnot).
Thoughts?
-- Mac