[HN Gopher] Practical? Common Lisp on the JVM: A quick intro to ...
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       Practical? Common Lisp on the JVM: A quick intro to ABCL for modern
       web apps
        
       Author : eatonphil
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2021-08-05 18:10 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (notes.eatonphil.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (notes.eatonphil.com)
        
       | alexott wrote:
       | Why not just use Clojure? It has good frameworks for web
       | programming, you can even use it for browser apps, etc. There are
       | of course differences, but from my point of view the code will be
       | less ugly.
       | 
       | P.S. I programmed in CL, and in Scheme (even commercial
       | software), but for JVM-based stuff, Clojure is my language of
       | choice
        
         | cutler wrote:
         | Seconded, if you're going to use the JVM, that is. Lisp on the
         | JVM is a solved problem.
        
           | michaelsbradley wrote:
           | ABCL became available in 2005[+], about two years before the
           | appearance of Clojure, and both continue to
           | developed/maintained to the present.
           | 
           | [+] https://abcl.org/svn/tags/0.00.10/j/README
        
           | creamytaco wrote:
           | Lots of folks don't see Clojure as a Lisp.
        
             | amanaplanacanal wrote:
             | How do they define a lisp that clojure doesn't qualify?
        
         | eatonphil wrote:
         | I have nothing against it but I'm not sure it needs any
         | additional press. :)
         | 
         | My goal wasn't "use the JVM at all cost", more so "show these
         | languages we know but benefiting from a mature ecosystem".
        
       | jlarocco wrote:
       | This is interesting from a "look what we can do!" perspective,
       | but practically speaking, there's not a good reason for doing it
       | this way. It would be better all around to use one of the
       | "native" Common Lisp libraries, such as Caveman:
       | http://8arrow.org/caveman/
       | 
       | Even as a big Common Lisp fan, I would really question using it
       | in a situation where the project has strict requirements to use a
       | particular framework for another language.
        
         | eatonphil wrote:
         | JVM and CLR has the long tail of libraries that just doesn't
         | exist for smaller languages. What happens when you want to
         | integrate with Parquet files or some common but sort-of-obscure
         | proprietary system like ClickHouse? I've done a bunch of FFI
         | integrations with C libraries and I never enjoy it. You always
         | have to make sure you're handling object lifetimes correctly
         | and you just don't have that issue if you're able to use Java
         | or CLR as your FFI target.
         | 
         | For small apps where you know you'll never have to leave the
         | native ecosystem it can be fine to stay outside of JVM/CLR. But
         | for business apps I think there's a lot of security to be had
         | by being able to integrate with JVM/CLR.
         | 
         | Edit: I'm not saying it's a good idea to choose ABCL, I hope
         | this article made that clear. SBCL is much more mature in most
         | dimensions.
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-05 23:01 UTC)