On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 9:43 PM Brian Adkins <lojicdot...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Using the lift dispatcher directly didn't feel quite right, so I'll look into 
> dispatch/servlet. Will dispatch/servlet spin up a thread for each request as 
> serve/servlet does? If so, that will save me from handling the request 
> threading myself. I don't think I need a stuffer or manager though, so I'm 
> not sure dispatch/sev

The one thread per request rule happens at a lower level in the heart
of the Web server.

> I don't know if the Racket web server (or related libraries) currently 
> provide a way to stream data in the response, but that is something I'll 
> definitely need relatively soon (primarily for streaming large CSV/JSON 
> files). If it doesn't exist, I don't mind writing it, but I also don't want 
> to begin with an approach now that might make adding that capability more 
> difficult later. From my brief research, given the output field of the 
> response struct is a lambda, I think I can stream using that (i.e. return a 
> lambda in the response immediately that begins writing the data as it 
> retrieves it) - hopefully the infrastructure doesn't buffer the entire 
> output. Other than something like that, I'm happy to work mostly at the level 
> of functions from requests to responses.

The reason why responses have the lambda rather than a byte string is
specifically for streaming like you want. Make sure you specify the
correct response size in the headers.

> I will need full control over the URL, and I thought I read somewhere that 
> some servlets needed to use the URL for state in some cases. That wouldn't 
> work for me.

`send/suspend` may use the URL(*) for state, but that is it. There's
no other part of the Web server that forces your URL in any way.

> I'm confused about your statement, "...make it easy to do stuff like encrypt 
> and sign the state you store on the clients". I would think encrypting and 
> signing something would be simple function calls unrelated to whether I'm 
> using servlets or not. Is this not the case? My client-side state needs are 
> minimal - typically a session ID is sufficient. I wasn't aware of 
> functionality built-in to the web server for this, so I just assumed I would 
> have a secret key on the server that I'd use to encrypt state. I haven't 
> gotten that far yet.

When `send/suspend` manipulates the URL (*or a POST parameter) to
store the state of your program, then you are storing information on
the client. That information is therefore susceptible to attack or
manipulation. The Web server gives you a simple way to either sign or
encrypt that information transparently, so that it is always done and
you never forget.

Jay

> On Friday, November 30, 2018 at 8:25:40 PM UTC-5, Jay McCarthy wrote:
>>
>> Hi Brian,
>>
>> I think you are misunderstanding what that section is about. It is
>> just describing how the system is implemented.  There's basically
>> nothing in there that you need to know as user other than "It may take
>> a while to compile." For instance, you don't worry about the fact that
>> all tree-like functions in your normal Racket code are eventually
>> turned into linear sequences of assembly. Those changes to your code
>> discussed in 3.2 are things that happen in the compiler, you don't
>> need to do anything, just like you don't need to think about register
>> allocation when you write normal programs, but it happens behind the
>> scenes.
>>
>> Nothing described in section 3 happens to your code unless you write
>> in `#lang web-server` or `#lang web-server/base`. You can use or not
>> use continuations and use or not use this library... they are totally
>> orthogonal. There is basically no program that you can write in one
>> that you can't write in the other, as long as you call the appropriate
>> version of `send/suspend`.
>>
>> The whole point of this library is to write code as-if it were
>> stateful, but the compiler automatically makes it stateless. If you
>> are comfortable programming directly with inverted control, then go
>> right ahead and implement the stateless stuff yourself. Both ways are
>> going to be equally efficient, although the `#lang web-server` library
>> will be guaranteed to do it correctly and make it easy to do stuff
>> like encrypt and sign the state you store on the clients.
>>
>> As far as using `serve/servlet` or not, the implementation of it is
>> really simple [1] in case you want to adapt it. I don't recommend
>> using the lift dispatcher directly. You probably want to use
>> `dispatch/servlet`. Remember, in Racket, a servlet is just a function
>> from request to response, with some resource control. It doesn't
>> impose any programming style or other costs on you. I get the
>> impression from your comments that you are really nervous about some
>> sort of costs imposed by using Racket libraries and think you will get
>> some benefit by being "low-level". This is probably misguided and just
>> based on some misunderstandings.
>>
>> Jay
>>
>> 1. 
>> https://github.com/racket/web-server/blob/master/web-server-lib/web-server/servlet-env.rkt#L156
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 4:30 PM Brian Adkins <lojic...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > I could be misreading the information in "3.2 Usage Considerations", but 
>> > it seemed like the modifications to my program were automatic, but maybe 
>> > that only happens when using #lang web-server or #lang web-server/base ?
>> >
>> > Regardless, I'm wondering if maybe I should just use (serve) instead of 
>> > (serve/servlet) since I'll likely be working at that level later anyway. 
>> > In that case, it looks like dispatch-lift:make is the main thing I need to 
>> > get things rolling. As a simple example:
>> >
>> > #lang racket
>> > (require web-server/web-server)
>> > (require web-server/http/response-structs)
>> > (require (prefix-in log: web-server/dispatchers/dispatch-log))
>> > (require (prefix-in lift: web-server/dispatchers/dispatch-lift))
>> > (require (prefix-in seq: web-server/dispatchers/dispatch-sequencer))
>> > (require (prefix-in stat: web-server/dispatchers/dispatch-stat))
>> >
>> > (define (controller request)
>> >   (response
>> >    200
>> >    #"OK"
>> >    (current-seconds)
>> >    TEXT/HTML-MIME-TYPE
>> >    empty
>> >    (λ (op) (write-bytes #"<html><body>Hello, World!</body></html>" op))))
>> >
>> > (serve
>> >  #:dispatch (seq:make (log:make #:format log:extended-format
>> >                                 #:log-path "development.log") ; log request
>> >                       (stat:make) ; print memory usage
>> >                       (lift:make controller))
>> >  #:port 8080)
>> >
>> > To be clear, it's not just continuations that I want to avoid, I'd also 
>> > like to avoid the changes that are described in section 3.2 above.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Friday, November 30, 2018 at 3:20:39 PM UTC-5, Jay McCarthy wrote:
>> >>
>> >> There's nothing wrong with ignoring the continuation support in the
>> >> Web server, either the native ones or stateless ones. If you do, I
>> >> recommend using something like `create-none-manager` [1]  as the
>> >> `#:manager` argument to `serve/servlet` so that you don't accidentally
>> >> start using them. The "too far" line is that you can't use
>> >> `send/suspend`. In the web-server/servlet/web [2] module, you just
>> >> want to use `send/back` and `with-errors-to-browser`, and no other
>> >> functions.
>> >>
>> >> Jay
>> >>
>> >> 1. 
>> >> https://docs.racket-lang.org/web-server/servlet.html?q=none-manager#%28def._%28%28lib._web-server%2Fmanagers%2Fnone..rkt%29._create-none-manager%29%29
>> >> 2. 
>> >> https://docs.racket-lang.org/web-server/servlet.html?q=send%2Fsuspend#%28part._web%29
>> >> On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 2:17 PM Brian Adkins <lojic...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > A while ago, I read Jay's response about how to use the Racket web 
>> >> > server w/o continuations here:
>> >> >
>> >> > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/racket-users/bTBj-RbMLDA/k80HNazuFAAJ
>> >> >
>> >> > At the time, I didn't dig very deeply into it and just assumed avoiding 
>> >> > web-server/servlet would be sufficient, but I just read through the 
>> >> > documentation on stateless servlets here:
>> >> >
>> >> > https://docs.racket-lang.org/web-server/stateless.html
>> >> >
>> >> > In particular, section 3.2, where it states things like:
>> >> >
>> >> > "All uses of letrec are removed and replaced with equivalent uses of 
>> >> > let and imperative features."
>> >> >
>> >> > "The program is defunctionalized with a serializable data-structure for 
>> >> > each lambda"
>> >> >
>> >> > "First, this process drastically changes the structure of your program. 
>> >> > It will create an immense number of lambdas and structures your program 
>> >> > did not normally contain. The performance implication of this has not 
>> >> > been studied with Racket."
>> >> >
>> >> > It seems like there is quite a bit of stuff going on to support 
>> >> > continuations with stateless servlets. Since I'm not planning on using 
>> >> > continuations at all, I'm not sure I want the changes to my code 
>> >> > described in section 3.2.
>> >> >
>> >> > I'm coming from an entirely stateless architecture w/ Ruby/Rails, and I 
>> >> > was planning on using a similar style w/ Racket, so I'm just trying to 
>> >> > get a feel for how low in the stack I need to be to avoid the extra 
>> >> > functionality that I don't want/need. Eventually, I'm planning on 
>> >> > resuming work on a web app framework in Racket that steals my favorite 
>> >> > things from Rails & other frameworks, and leaves out the cruft. For 
>> >> > that, I expect I'll need to base my code on lower levels, but for my 
>> >> > current app, I don't have time to create too much infrastructure, so 
>> >> > I'd like to leverage basic things from built-in Racket functionality 
>> >> > without going "too far", and I'm not even able to articulate well where 
>> >> > the "too far" line is.
>> >> >
>> >> > Thanks,
>> >> > Brian
>> >> >
>> >> > --
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>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> -=[     Jay McCarthy               http://jeapostrophe.github.io    ]=-
>> >> -=[ Associate Professor        PLT @ CS @ UMass Lowell     ]=-
>> >> -=[ Moses 1:33: And worlds without number have I created; ]=-
>> >
>> > --
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -=[     Jay McCarthy               http://jeapostrophe.github.io    ]=-
>> -=[ Associate Professor        PLT @ CS @ UMass Lowell     ]=-
>> -=[ Moses 1:33: And worlds without number have I created; ]=-
>
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-- 
-=[     Jay McCarthy               http://jeapostrophe.github.io    ]=-
-=[ Associate Professor        PLT @ CS @ UMass Lowell     ]=-
-=[ Moses 1:33: And worlds without number have I created; ]=-

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