Re: [Chicken-users] Standard APIs for databases, Web-apps

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Graham Fawcett wrote:
> I'd like to open discussion about introducing two formal APIs for use
> in the development of future Chicken eggs: a standard API for
> accessing relational databases, and a standard API for connecting Web
> frameworks/applications to HTTP servers or *CGI gateways.

I really have no stake in the issue.  I'm a 3D / AI / game programmer, 
and not generally interested in databases or web stuff.  My comments are 
only about implementing "standards."  In open source, standards become 
such only in hindsight.  Things have to get implemented and then used.  
Different people often provide different implementations and APIs for 
the same class of problem; there's a "Survival Of The Fittest" dynamic 
at work here.  So I would suggest, don't worry about standards.  Just 
implement whatever API you want, and get other people to help out / use 
it.  If you and your crew get enough oomph behind it, then maybe someday 
it'll be a de facto standard.

Still, I'll be honest, I have a hard time seeing that happening for 
*any* Chicken egg.  It may be "standard for Chicken" but I'm not 
convinced Chicken has a large enough user community to ever create 
broader standards.  Python has tons more people than Chicken, it is much 
much farther along in its tools and community evolution than Chicken 
is.  Never mind Java.  Meanwhile, each Scheme implementation is a right 
unto itself, the playing field is very fragmented.

Writing a binding for an extant, bona fide standard might be a more 
profitable course to pursue.  The downside is that popular programming 
standards are never written with a Scheme mindset.  So then you ask 
yourself, am I going to make a low level binding, or am I going to do a 
lot of value add in Scheme?  If you do the latter, then you don't really 
have a standard anymore.  For instance, in my case the tension is 
between producing an OpenGL 2.0 binding and a 3D engine.  They're 
different goals that please different crowds.



Cheers,
Brandon Van Every