5 ms·

I remember using the Roxen webserver somewhere in the 90s when we had a workmate who was very fond of it. Roxen is probably the single reason for the existence

I remember using the Roxen webserver somewhere in the 90s when we had a workmate who was very fond of it. Roxen is probably the single reason for the existence of Pike – or the other way round.

pram 7y ago
Very interesting. I had no idea Roxen was even a thing. Never heard it mentioned once in the past 20 years of being a linux janitor! Kinda like AOLServer/Navi levels of obscurity.
- randallsquared 7y ago
  Heh. My first production app was built in Roxen RXML, with a little Pike here and there where RXML’s sluggishness couldn’t be tolerated. By the third version, it was almost entirely Pike.
  - em-bee 7y ago
    you wouldn't believe what people were capable of writing with RXML. i worked with one company where they wrote a whole ERP system almost all in RXML. it was amazing.
- em-bee 7y ago
  having heard of AOLServer, i'd say, that's about right. i discovered it in 1994 when i decided that the ncsa/cern servers were to simplistic. apache wasn't a thing yet. and the first alternative i found was a server written in common lisp. i was put off by the fact that i had to write lisp code to just serve static html files, so i kept searching, and found spinner (the predecessor for roxen) next. it came with an extensive webinterface for server administration and was just a blast to work with.
vinkelhake 7y ago
Now that's a name i haven't heard in a long time. Pike too for that matter. Quite interesting to see that Pike still an active project.
mhd 7y ago
If I remember correctly, one of the selling points of the Roxen/Pike combination back then was its ability to dynamically render headings as images without much effort. "Weird flex", as the kids say these days, but times were weird and HTML limited. Pike itself always struck me as rather boring. Quite C-like compared to the other P-languages, but nothing really powerful. Still probably better than pre-7 PHP… (Anyone knows what happened or didn't happen to Icon? Looked more interesting back then, but vanished into the haze.)
- nyankosensei 7y ago
  Icon is still available, but not actively developed: https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/icon/ https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/icon/ Unicon is an object-oriented descendant that’s more active: http://unicon.org/ http://unicon.org/ I often wonder why Icon (or Unicon) isn’t more widely known or used these days. They’re very easy to understand and I was amazed how quickly I could write interesting code. There are excellent tutorial books available to help get started: https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/icon/books.htm https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/icon/books.htm
em-bee 7y ago
pike is based on LPC which was designed for MUDs. LPMUDs where the first games to have builtin ftp and then webservers written in LPC. pike is a rewrite of LPC to free it from the non-commercial license that LPC had at the time.

I remember using the Roxen webserver somewhere in the 90s when we had a workmate who was very fond of it. Roxen is probably the single reason for the existence of Pike – or the other way round.

pram 7y ago

Very interesting. I had no idea Roxen was even a thing. Never heard it mentioned once in the past 20 years of being a linux janitor! Kinda like AOLServer/Navi levels of obscurity.

randallsquared 7y ago
Heh. My first production app was built in Roxen RXML, with a little Pike here and there where RXML’s sluggishness couldn’t be tolerated. By the third version, it was almost entirely Pike.
- em-bee 7y ago
  you wouldn't believe what people were capable of writing with RXML. i worked with one company where they wrote a whole ERP system almost all in RXML. it was amazing.
em-bee 7y ago
having heard of AOLServer, i'd say, that's about right. i discovered it in 1994 when i decided that the ncsa/cern servers were to simplistic. apache wasn't a thing yet. and the first alternative i found was a server written in common lisp. i was put off by the fact that i had to write lisp code to just serve static html files, so i kept searching, and found spinner (the predecessor for roxen) next. it came with an extensive webinterface for server administration and was just a blast to work with.

vinkelhake 7y ago

Now that's a name i haven't heard in a long time. Pike too for that matter. Quite interesting to see that Pike still an active project.

mhd 7y ago

If I remember correctly, one of the selling points of the Roxen/Pike combination back then was its ability to dynamically render headings as images without much effort. "Weird flex", as the kids say these days, but times were weird and HTML limited. Pike itself always struck me as rather boring. Quite C-like compared to the other P-languages, but nothing really powerful. Still probably better than pre-7 PHP… (Anyone knows what happened or didn't happen to Icon? Looked more interesting back then, but vanished into the haze.)

nyankosensei 7y ago
Icon is still available, but not actively developed: https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/icon/ https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/icon/ Unicon is an object-oriented descendant that’s more active: http://unicon.org/ http://unicon.org/ I often wonder why Icon (or Unicon) isn’t more widely known or used these days. They’re very easy to understand and I was amazed how quickly I could write interesting code. There are excellent tutorial books available to help get started: https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/icon/books.htm https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/icon/books.htm

em-bee 7y ago

pike is based on LPC which was designed for MUDs. LPMUDs where the first games to have builtin ftp and then webservers written in LPC. pike is a rewrite of LPC to free it from the non-commercial license that LPC had at the time.