This is the mail archive of the kawa@sources.redhat.com mailing list for the Kawa project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

BRL 2.1.14: HTTP cookies, easier installation, bigger manual


This will be the last BRL announcement sent to the kawa and lispweb
mailing lists.  There is now a brl-announce list.  See
http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=3321

BRL 2.1.14 released 2000-08-30

The brl-cookie-set! procedure has been added and documented.  Existing
cookie-related procedures have been documented in a new "BRL
Reference" chapter of the manual, along with many other previously
undocumented procedures.

It is no longer necessary to set the scmdir Servlet parameter if the
default installation directory is used.

                                1. Introduction
                                       
   BRL is a language designed for server-side WWW-based applications,
   particularly database applications. Its facility for generating output
   from databases makes it a report language. It hides powerful semantics
   behind a simple syntax, resulting in code that is easy to write, read
   and maintain. This makes it a beautiful language. Thus its name, BRL,
   the Beautiful Report Language.
   
   BRL programs are very much like web pages. One simply puts a BRL file
   on a HTTP server and calls up the appropriate URL In a web browser.
   The first time the page is loaded it is compiled, and the same
   compiled program is used for subsequent page loads until the
   underlying BRL file is modified.
   
   There are other systems besides BRL that work in a similar manner, but
   they usually require learning a programming language that is unique to
   that system (e.g. PHP, CFML), or a language that is more cumbersome
   than necessary (e.g. Java/JSP) for the simple programming usually
   demanded in HTML pages. BRL uses Scheme, a language taught in hundreds
   of universities, colleges and secondary schools worldwide.
   
   Scheme uses an extremely uncomplicated syntax that makes simple code
   look simple. It is popular for teaching Computer Science (CS) because
   instructors can spend a short time teaching the language itself,
   leaving more time to teach CS principles. This has given Scheme a
   reputation for being a difficult language because it is usually
   associated with advanced concepts. However, those advanced concepts
   are not necessary for writing applications using BRL.
   
   BRL is suitable not just for HTML, but for any markup language. A
   combination of BRL and pdflatex can be used to dynamically generate
   PDF files.
   
   BRL uses a database-neutral SQL interface, borrowed from Java's JDBC.
   The current implementation of BRL is a Java Servlet, allowing
   integration with all the most popular HTTP servers. All major
   operating system / database / HTTP server combinations are suitable
   for running BRL.

-- 
Bruce R. Lewis				http://brl.sourceforge.net/

Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]