How can I do web programming with Lisp or Scheme?

Question

I usually write web apps in PHP, Ruby or Perl. I am starting the study of Scheme and I want to try some web project with this language. But I can't find what is the best environment for this.

I am looking for the following features:

• A simple way of get the request parameters (something like: get-get #key, get-post #key, get-cookie #key).
• Mysql access.
• HTML Form generators, processing, validators, etc.
• Helpers for filter user input data (something like htmlentities, escape variables for put in queries, etc).
• FLOSS.
• And GNU/Linux friendly.

So, thanks in advance to all replies.

Answer 1

Racket has everything that you need. See the Racket web server tutorial and then the documentation. The web server has been around for a while, and it has a lot of features. Probably the only thing that is not included is a mysql interface, but that exists as a package on PLaneT (Racket package distribution tool).

UPDATE: Racket now comes with DB support, works with several DBs including mysql.

Answer 2

You may want to have a look at Clojure:

Clojure is a dynamic programming language that targets the Java Virtual Machine. [...] Clojure provides easy access to the Java frameworks, with optional type hints and type inference, to ensure that calls to Java can avoid reflection.

Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, and shares with Lisp the code-as-data philosophy and a powerful macro system.

Interop with Java is straightforward in Clojure, so you can re-use any existing Java libraries as you need. I'm sure there are plenty that are useful for web development.

clojure-contrib has an SQL API, and there is ClojureQL as well, which should cover your DB access needs.

There is a web framework for Clojure called Compojure under development. There may be others, too.

Clojure's source is available on github under the EPL. Getting it running on Linux is easy; I just clone the git repos and run ant.

Answer 3

You can do web development with guile scheme. Its standard library includes the (sxml simple) module that is very useful for html generation, manipulation, and parsing. The guile-www library adds support for http, cgi, etc. The guile-dbi library provides access to MySQL and other databases. With these building blocks, you can implement everything from simple cgi scripts to web applications with their own HTTP server.

Answer 4

Try Weblocks, a Common Lisp web framework:

http://weblocks.viridian-project.de/