RE: scsh in PLT Scheme?

["Alex Peake" <apeake@comac.com>]

Thank you for the information Kirill.

(BTW, my comment about "...and at least half of the world of server
functionality..." was not about RDBMSs etc, but just Servers running MS OSs,
but Web Servers are similarly about half the market).

You raise a perspective which is interesting. Suppose I move to the world of
POSIX:

* How would I then deal with connecting to RDBMSs? Currently I use
(Microsoft) ADO (COM) to connect with MS SQL Server. I am assuming that the
best I could do is some low level connection to Oracle, or perhaps DB2?

* How would I integrate with Message Queueing? Currently I use COM and MSMQ

* What would I do for a User Interface? Currently I use (in addition to Web
Browsers to which the answer is easy) Visual Basic forms with lots of OCX
(COM) user interface widgets (smart grids with built in drop downs,
toolbars, calendars, ...).

* What would I do to program in the Web Server environment? Currently I use
Active Server Pages. I assume it means using PLT Web Server, or else Apache
and CGI or mod-xxx?

* What would I use for email? Currently I use a COM object.

* What would I use for XSLT? (XML seems well covered in Scheme!). Currently
I use MS XML COM.

* Would Scheme integrate with all of this in a consistent way (as COM does
now and soon .NET will)?

(COM continues and so is not a lost investment. .NET is interesting because
it is the future direction, and a useful advancement, from Microsoft.)

(BTW, Java offers a similar large and consistent set of interoperability.)

Where I am coming from, is that I have been on an almost two year intensive
research following the trail of "there has to be a better way". (I develop
large business applications - Web Commerce, Warehousing and Order
Processing, ... I am driven to delivering good business solutions cost
effectively.)

I have roamed the web and research groups studying other approaches. I have
studied many of the popular and emerging languages (Java, C#, VB.NET,
Scheme, Lisp, Haskell, Clean, Miranda, O'Caml, SML, Erlang). I also have a
long practicing history of older languages (HPL, BASIC, VB, C, C++, Pascal,
SQL Windows, Smalltalk, PHP, Prolog, Lisp, many "expert system" shells and
database languages (Oracle PL/SQL, MS T/SQL, dBase). I have studied
functional programming, generative programming, declarative programming,
aspect oriented programming.

My conclusion? There (unfortunately) is no good solution. There are a number
of adequate compromises. Functional languages seem to offer most from a
language perspective, and amongst those I prefer Scheme (hence my use of PLT
in my work). I also believe, and have practiced extensively, in generative
programming (most of my Scheme work is here).


Alex



-----Original Message-----
From: Kirill Lisovsky [mailto:lisovsky@acm.org]
Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2002 5:07 AM
To: Alex Peake
Cc: MJ Ray; plt-scheme@fast.cs.utah.edu
Subject: RE: scsh in PLT Scheme?


Hello!

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, Alex Peake wrote:

> Microsoft owns the desktop and .NET is where all their future investment
is)
> and at least half of the world of server functionality (since Microsoft
also
> owns more than half of that) (database, message queue, web services,
email,
> ..).
Not quite.
Say, on DMBS market Microsoft's share is 15%.
http://www.crn.com/Sections/BreakingNews/BreakingNews.asp?ArticleID=26798

App. servers, MOM (message-oriented middleware), web servers are other
examples.

> Interoperability is the key for application developers (such as myself),
> especially since languages like Scheme cannot afford the investment that
the
> Microsoft development community puts in to "components".

I'm developing PLT applications for (in alphabet order :-)) AIX, Linux and
Windows.
Alas, some of this OS have not enough support from Microsoft development
community which effectively prevents development of portable Scheme
applications
based on MS "components". And RS/6000 is not the only platform
supported by PLT and unsupported by Microsoft...

> .NET is where Microsoft is investing billions of dollars. Few can match
the
> innovation coming from that. (COM still exists, and PLT rather nicely
> supports that, but it is not the future.)
Which makes .NET a very moving target, isn't it?
How long was the period of glory for COM?
Huge investments in short-living technologies is not easy pattern to
follow, I'm afraid... A few can match Microsoft here.

> Similarly Java is where Sun, IBM, Oracle and others are placing their
(beat
> Microsoft) bets.
>
I've no numbers at hand concerning other big guns, but IBM have invested its
$1B
in Linux last year.

> With that financial and creative might, that is where I put my bet on it
> being viable three years from now.
POSIX is already here.
So, it has to be supported first and .NET support may be scheduled 2005,
isn't it?
.NET and POSIX are not excluding each other after all.

> BTW, what is POSIX (in a modern desktop and server world)? ;)
POSIX is Linux, for example. And its share of webservers which is
hard to ignore :-)
I believe that you may be interested in the numbers at
http://www.webcraft.com/survey/

If you want it from Microsoft perspective:
"The Portable Operating System for UNIX (POSIX) subsystem is not
included with Windows XP. The POSIX subsystem has been replaced with a
more UNIX-like (but still POSIX) environment called Interix. Interix is a
superset of the original POSIX subsystem with more functionality. Interix is
a
more complete UNIX environment."
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q308259

IMHO from pragmatic point of view interface to stable wide-supported
standard
with a long life-time (POSIX) is more promising target than an attempt to
support
latest "future technology" desperately keeping pace with its promoter
(.NET).

Well, this is just my personal opinion. The primary goal of this message is
to
provide some facts and links which may be interesting in context of
this discussion.

Best regards,
         Kirill.