Lua Server Pages

(For Developers)

• Powerful server side scripting language

  Lua Server Pages, LSP for short, is a blinding fast general-purpose scripting language that is well suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. LSP supports the latest Web development techniques such as WEB 2.0 applications, Ajax, and Web-Services.

• Extremely fast

  LSP is powered by the powerful, light weight programming language Lua and is comparable to the speed of a compiled language such as C++. As an example, a XML parser designed in Lua is just as fast as a XML compiler designed in C code.

Easy to learn Learning LSP is easy if you have experience with a scripting language such as PHP, ASP, etc.. Learning Lua is a breeze if you have prior experience with any scripting language. The WEB server API available to LSP applications is similar to APIs in enterprise servers, and you can, therefore, use your existing knowledge when designing LSP applications. LSP is a plugin integrated into the BarracudaDrive Server. A wealth of features BarracudaDrive Server also provides a wealth of other plugins such as Bindows, a WEB 2.0. SDK. Bindows is a Software Development Kit (SDK) for writing robust and secure Rich Internet Applications. With Bindows you can develop web applications that look and feel like Windows applications. The Bindows platform provides rich functionality for thin Web clients. Bindows applications require no end-user installation -- true zero-footprint.

• Web Services and LSP

  Designing Web Services in LSP is simple. You declare your Lua functions as web-services, which instantly makes these functions available to a client Bindows application. The Bindows JavaScript application calls the server side functions as if the functions were local JavaScript functions in the client.

Benefits of LSP

• Fast: Lua is one of the fastest scripting languages.
• Small: Lua is one of the smallest scripting languages, making it ideal for systems with limited resources.
• Easy deployment: LSP applications are simple ZIP files and, consequently, very easy to install.
• Concurrency: LSP makes it possible to handle multiple concurrent requests.
• Extensible: Lua is extensible and powerful. It is possible to migrate 90% of a C/C++ application to Lua, including but not limited to web-applications.
• Security: The LSP plugin and the Barracuda Web Server come with many advanced security features, making it easy to enable security in any application.
• Web 2.0: The integrated Web 2.0 Bindows SDK and the built in web-services support makes it very easy to design advanced Web 2.0 applications.
• Compiler: LSP can be compiled so that LSP source code does not have to be distributed.

The initial load time for WEB 2.0 applications can be slow on many servers. We solve this problem by storing deployed applications as zip files. The zip file does not need to be uncompressed by the server as the server can directly mount the ZIP file as a file system. Files inside the ZIP file are sent compressed directly to the browser, thus reducing the browser load time by a factor of 3.

Online LSP documentation