[plt-scheme] just starting, comming from j2ee

On Nov 1, 2004, at 3:07 PM, Jaime Barciela wrote:

>   For list-related administrative tasks:
>   http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
>
> Hello all,
>
> I'm just starting with Lisp/Scheme. My day job is all
> about Java/J2EE (Servlets, EJB, ...) and I want to set
> up  something equivalent to that only using
> Lisp/Scheme.
>
> I have evaluated several implementation and so far my
> candidates are CLisp and PLT Scheme (I need to be able
> to deploy on Windows). They are close, but I like that
> PLT have support for threads and libraries for
> XML/HTML.
>
> With CLisp the solution would be to use Apache +
> mod_lisp or fastCGI.
>
> My question is, how would the architecture be with
> PLT? Behind Apache with some equivalent to mod_lisp?
> (I know PLT has its own web server but I understand is
> not too secure so far.)
>
> Is it posible to build a *high performance*, *highly
> scalable* web site (say, Amazon) using PLT? With
> continuations for linear flow control, or they will
> kill performance?

You need a lot of money to build a web site like Amazon's with the 
continuation-based server. It sounds like an interesting challenge, and 
I believe it is doable. Unfortunately, it requires some more research 
and significant labor. As much as I'd like to say "go for it" I can't 
honestly do so. [Some issues: security, memory consumption, many 
servers, database connectivity]

> How the performance would compare with my reference:
> J2EE? Say BEA Weblogic.

We don't know.

> I know the app will have to be drastically different
> (beyond syntax) but what I want is to get a sense of
> where are the limits and what is the applicability of
> PLT for production enterprise sotfware.

Having said that, there are several people around the world who use the 
PLT server for business purposes. If it's really Amazon, too much. If 
it's less, build an evaluation prototype.

You could build a mod_mzscheme alternatively. But you need to know that 
this will take away some of the advantages of Scheme.

Or you could have an Apache server forward connections to a PLT server. 
That might be the right combination, though I must admit I have only 
thought about this, I haven't explored it personally and I don't know 
anybody who has, say, run a little business like this for a while.

-- Matthias