Is jscl.js enough for running in a browser?

[aerique]

Hi, I've been a Common Lisp user for 20+ years but so far for my fxhash projects I have been using ClojureScript. It's ok, but I really prefer Common Lisp.

I haven't been closely following the CL community since a few years so I wasn't aware of JSCL and its viability to replace ClojureScript for me.

So, I've been taking some baby steps but there isn't a lot to find online as either guides or examples and what the whole webdev stack has turned into these days just scares me.

Anyway, what I have now is an index.html file that loads the bootstrapped jscl.js and main.js. This latter file has been compiled by doing sbcl --load jscl.lisp and then:

> (in-package :jscl)
> (let ((*environment* (make-lexenv)))
    (compile-application '("main.lisp") "main.js"))

main.lisp is just a test file that contains (#j:console:log (format nil "Hello, World!")).

This works when I serve this directory over HTTP (loading it as a file in Firefox is a whole different can of worms).

However once I try doing any fancy things like (defparameter *canvas* (#j:document:getElementById "canvas")) (this element exists in index.html) I run into issues that give me the impression that I need more than just load jscl.js from index.html.

Is this impression correct?

(To be clear, my use case is compiling a Lisp file with my code to JS and load those static files from a browser. I'm not interested in running Node.)

[davazp]

Try compiling both your code and JSCL within the same *environment*.

You could, as well, load the CL code at runtime in JSCL as well.

But the whole story of deploying user applications isn't really thought out really. Others have tried a few different hacks.

I could imagine (compile-file ..) generating .js files as you intended form main, and just adding that together with .jscl.. Or even a higher level (compile-application ). But there isn't anything like that yet.

[aerique]

I've put the compilation of main.lisp in jscl:bootstrap and that fixes my current issues (I'll be back though ;-) ).

Not ideal, but another step and I'll come to a better solution in the meantime.

Thanks!