[plt-scheme] Vancouver Lisp Users Group meeting for August - Web Continuations Considered Harmful

Hi all,

Summer is drawing to a close, so it's time to turn our attentions to
something other than surf, sand, and Beach Boys songs! The next two
lispvan meetings will have a continuations on the web focus. In
August, Marc Battyani will be arguing against the use of continuations
in web applications. Given that a number of lispvan members feel very
strongly that they are a "good idea", this meeting promises to be an
interesting one! Then, in September, James Wright will be discussing
the use of a lisp-based program transformer to provide continuations
in Javascript for asynchronous operations in the browser (Note: Chris
Double has written a number of posts about continuations and
asynchronous operations in Javascript that are well worth reading).

Here's the "official" meeting notice:

Topic: Web Continuations Considered Harmful
Presenter: Marc Battyani
Date: Thursday, August 17, 2006
Time: 7pm - 10pm (or whenever)
Venue: Think!, 4512 West 10th Ave., Vancouver
Summary: Marc Battyani is well known in Lisp circles for a number of reasons:

    * He does Lisp development work full-time.
    * He has written his own CL web framework (which he hasn't
released) as well as the popular mod_lisp Apache module for passing
HTTP requests from Apache to a Lisp server.
    * He developed CL-PDF and CL-TYPESETTING - two popular CL packages
for working with documents in CL.
    * When Reddit moved from CL to Python, Marc created a Reddit-clone
in Lisp (in fact, he started a trend!). From this, the Common Lisp
Directory project evolved.

So, with such an interesting Lisp background, lispvan is very pleased
to have Marc come over from France to visit Vancouver and speak at our
meeting! He will be focusing on the following two topics:

   1. Lisp at work: Marc and his wife Anne have their own Lisp-based
business called Fractal Concept that specializes in the development of
custom circuit boards and electronic devices for industry as well as
custom applications in Lisp. He will be providing an overview of what
his business does and how he manages to differentiate his offering and
stay competitive using Lisp. This will provide an interesting insight
for anyone who has ever dreamed about running their own lisp-based
business!
   2. Web Continuations Considered Harmful: Actually, this is my title
(one of the "perks" of being the one who writes up the meeting
notices!) rather than Marc's, so don't send him any hate mail! ;-) But
Marc does feel that continuations are not a "good idea" for web
application frameworks and will explain in this session why he thinks
other approaches are much better. I'm sure there will be some "frank
and meaningful" discussions following the presentation as well! ;-)

So, kick off the flip-flops, abandon the beach and join us for a
thrilling end-of-summer lispvan meeting!

Additional links are on my blog posting: http://bc.tech.coop/blog/060808.html

--
Bill Clementson