"These are sometimes used to host full-blown web applications but I don't see them being used to facilitate mildly dynamic functionality. mod_perl and mod_lua, for example, don't really offer any kind of functionality allowing you to dip [in] and out of Perl/Lua code inside HTML."
I want to understand this statement however I only use Lua with haproxy to achieve "mildly dynamic" pages. It is difficult for me to understand what exactly the author wants to do without an example.
Are there any good examples showing that the author is correct, i.e., that it is impossible to "dip in and out" of Lua inside HTML.
Certainly I recall projects that purported to offer Lua as a CGI-like interpreter, "Lua Server Pages", or something similar. Have they not delivered on their promises.
Author here. I wasn't aware people had made Lua Server Pages and so on. Thanks, these are an interesting resource and I may actually investigate experimenting with these at some point.
If there's a distinction to be made, it's that things like mod_php provided this embedded script functionality out of the box, whereas it looks like these things are separate modules that need to be stacked on top of something like mod_lua. That's not necessarily even a bad thing, as it means more of the stack is readily customised, but it does mean people aren't given an obvious, bright path to get started with in the way LAMP was. You have to seek it out for yourself.
With perl, you can use Template::Toolkit, and there's even "PLP" that emulates exactly PHP behaviour, but using Perl as a language, and "<: :>" markers instead of "<?php ?>".
Another example is NetBSD's httpd, bozohttpd, which can use Lua, or any interpreter, to run CGI scripts. Lua is included in the NetBSD userland. (OpenBSD by contrast includes Perl.)
I want to understand this statement however I only use Lua with haproxy to achieve "mildly dynamic" pages. It is difficult for me to understand what exactly the author wants to do without an example.
Are there any good examples showing that the author is correct, i.e., that it is impossible to "dip in and out" of Lua inside HTML.
Certainly I recall projects that purported to offer Lua as a CGI-like interpreter, "Lua Server Pages", or something similar. Have they not delivered on their promises.
For example, see
http://keplerproject.github.io/cgilua/manual.html
https://fuguhub.com/LuaServerPages.lsp
http://barracudaserver.com/Lua-Server-Pages.html
http://xupnpd.org/luasp/
https://redbean.dev/