Dragonfly 0.60 - a newLisp web framework

http://www.rundragonfly.com/

by itistoday • 17 years ago

17 17 17 years ago

rundragonfly.com

pchristensen• 17 years ago

Note that it's newLisp web framework, not a new Lisp web framework.

Ixiaus• 17 years ago

Cool post, I never new about newLISP before this; just checked out the language and it looks really cool!

abstractbill3• 17 years ago

Beware. It isn't cool. It rehashes some awful mistakes that were made in the design of early Lisp languages - in particular dynamic scope.

It's a shame, as some effort has clearly been put in to making newLisp something that people can get up-and-running with very quickly. But with the language itself being broken, this effort is wasted.

itistoday4• 17 years ago

Also, beware of trolls making comments like the above.

newLISP's "coolness" is a matter of opinion, not some sort of objective fact.

So the next time you hear someone telling you something "isn't cool, stay away from it", don't let them make up your mind for you.

Thankfully I didn't listen to the bullshit and discovered a beautiful language in newLISP, and today it's my favorite language to code in. Its dynamic scope goes hand-in-hand with its interpreted nature is what makes it so great for rapid web development.

KazimirMajorinc4• 17 years ago

In my opinion, dynamic scope is adequate solution for Lisp approach, i.e. expressive power on the first place. Newlisp is very simple and expressive dialect, and it is pleasure using it. Dynamic scope allow some things statical scope doesn't. Sure, the price for that expressive power is that one has to be more careful, but this is not really that hard, and it shouldn't be the problem to anyone who really accept basic Lisp ideas.

I can see how dynamic scope - just like dynamic typing, eval or macros - could be seen as problem for people who want language like, say, Ada that puts safety on the first place. It is legitimate position. But it is not design goal or tradition of Lisp. Lisp is designed for AI, exploratory programming, hacking, expressive power, adventure. Owner of this site, Paul Graham, frequently wrote in that vein. It is simply not consistent to brag about expressive power of Lisp, and then turn into safety freak when one mentions dynamic scope.

OK safety freak is maybe too strong, but you get the point.

uggedal• 17 years ago

Bad name, already used for a BSD flavor and Opera's debug thingie

vdm• 17 years ago

When I see 'Dragonfly' on HN, I think of DragonflyBSD.

http://www.dragonflybsd.org/

Did you even Google the name?

itistoday4• 17 years ago

Yes. The word Dragonfly is used to describe many things, have you Googled it? It's used by so many companies and projects that qualifying it (DragonflyBSD, Dragonfly Web Framework, etc.) is practically a requirement.

Why Dragonfly? Because newLISP's clever logo is a Dragonfly made out of parenthesis:

http://www.newlisp.org/index.cgi?page=Art

Dragonfly 0.60 - a newLisp web framework

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