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Lisp in The Cloud

This document discusses running Lisp applications in the cloud using existing tools like Heroku and WuWei. It proposes that the next Lisp machine will be everywhere through web applications and distributed systems. It envisions computational worlds that are visible, controllable and habitable by users through tools that lower barriers and make software development more accessible.

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40 views13 pages

Lisp in The Cloud

This document discusses running Lisp applications in the cloud using existing tools like Heroku and WuWei. It proposes that the next Lisp machine will be everywhere through web applications and distributed systems. It envisions computational worlds that are visible, controllable and habitable by users through tools that lower barriers and make software development more accessible.

Uploaded by

onwunalu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Lisp in the Cloud

and

The Next Lisp Machine Will Be


Everywhere

Mike Travers
[email protected]
Github: mtravers
Lisp BOF, 31 March 2012

Bifurcated Lightning Talk


Small hacks that
make Lisp web
apps practical

Grand vision of what


computing should be

Instant Lisp Web Servers


Application!
WuWei

Already forked on Github!

Portable
Hunchentoot
AllegroServe

QuickLisp

Clozure
SBCLCL
Common Lisp Buildpack
Heroku (Cedar Stack)
EC2

Heroku CL Buildpack
1) Get Heroku and Github accounts.
2) Fork mtravers/heroku-cl-example
3)
heroku create -s cedar --buildpack
http://github.com/mtravers/heroku-buildpack-cl.git

4) [add your stuff]


5) git push heroku

6) Voila, a Lisp-based website!

Infrastructure TBD
Adding in a persistence layer
Heroku provides Postgres, hooking up
CLSQL
Security, Performance, Scaling
Debugging tools
(already an EVAL server)
Building a big application
Overtaking Rails

WuWei Web toolkit


Philosophy: toolkit not platform
Continuation-based AJAX user interfaces
Server-side high-level DOM operations
(update elements, visual effects, drag and drop)
High-level interfaces to in-place editing and
autocomplete widgets
Login and session management
OAuth2 support (coming soon)

Runs in multiple Common Lisp implementations


Freely available under MIT Open Source License
In use: http://biocyc.org (SRI)
http://wuwei.name or GitHub mtravers/wuwei

WuWei and ARC Challenge


Paul Grahams test for a web language
(2008)http://www.paulgraham.com/arcchallenge.
html
(wu-publish "/said"
((:form :action
(wu-continuation (:args (foo))
((:a href (wu-continuation () (:princ foo)))
"Click me")))
((:input :name "foo"))
((:input :type :submit))))

Pretty concise and you dont have to invent a new


language for it.

So What?
Why is Lisp interesting in todays world?
We know its not just another language,
but what exactly does it offer?

Habitable Software

Richard Gabriel: software where developers place their hands on any


item without having to think deeply about where it is.

Past Lisp Systems:


REPLs
LispM / Dynamic Windows / CLIM

Some of Mm Efforts
Skij (REPL in Java, 1997)
Childrens Visual Programming / Behave / Scratch
BioBike: through-the-web symbolic biocomputing

But todays computational world is different:

Web, Mobile Devices


Distributed Systems, Web Services
Big Data
Social user experience
Social coding

Next Grand Vision


What we should be building:
All the interactive computational power of a Lisp
Machine
in the world of the Web, Distributed Services, Big
Data, Social Computing, etc.

Occupy Computation!
Make computational worlds visible, controllable,
buildable, and habitable by the people who need
to interact with them.
The computational world is increasingly
indistinguishable from the real world, so this is a
political imperative

Conclusion

Lisp lowers barriers,


The Internet lowers barriers,
Heroku lowers barriers,
Lets keep doing more of
that.

End

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