Lisp is thought of an academic language but it need not be. This is the
first book that introduces Lisp as a language for the real world.
Part I is the introduction to the Lisp language. The goal in Part I is
to give the reader an overall understanding of the features of the
language and a sufficiently robust understanding of how they work in
order to prepare the reader for the practical code examples in Part II.
Part I includes the case studies of the Franz Store, Viaweb,
Pandorabots, and ASCENT.
Part II shows larger-scale examples of practical Lisp programming. The
practical examples in this section are all centered around building a
streaming mp3 server. By the end of the book, the reader will have code
for a Lisp mp3 server that serves streaming mp3s via the Shoutcast
protocol to any standard mp3 client software (e.g. iTunes, XMMS, or
WinAmp). Siebel will show how to store metadata in both a simple
home-brew sexp database as well as a relational database (MySQL). He
will demonstrate how to use threads to support multiple simultaneous
client connections. The server will advertise a Web Service (WSDL)
interface and a Web Services programmer (i.e. anyone with Visual Studio
.NET) can write an app to replace the browser-based interface.