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What's happening with Arc?

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Re: What's happening with Arc?

#2

Post by pg »

I'll probably release a new version later this year. Most of the changes will be in news.arc, which is now pretty solid. Maybe I'll actually make an effort to make it installable without having to understand the source.

Re: What's happening with Arc?

#4

Post by ygd »

pg wrote: post #2

I'll probably release a new version later this year. Most of the changes will be in news.arc, which is now pretty solid. Maybe I'll actually make an effort to make it installable without having to understand the source.

I've always been meaning to check it out, but the barrier of entry has been too high (likely due to my laziness). IMO: an installer would be a good idea, availability on aptitude would be the best.

Re: What's happening with Arc?

#5

Post by metamemetics »

pg wrote: post #2

I'll probably release a new version later this year. Most of the changes will be in news.arc, which is now pretty solid. Maybe I'll actually make an effort to make it installable without having to understand the source.

Do you have any thoughts on a built in help operator mapping other operators to docstrings?

Re: What's happening with Arc?

#6

Post by evanrmurphy »

metamemetics wrote: post #5
pg wrote: post #2

I'll probably release a new version later this year. Most of the changes will be in news.arc, which is now pretty solid. Maybe I'll actually make an effort to make it installable without having to understand the source.

Do you have any thoughts on a built in help operator mapping other operators to docstrings?

There is one in Anarki: http://github.com/nex3/arc/tree/master/help/

Usage examples:

  arc> help.acons
  [fn]  (acons x)
   Determines if `x' is a `cons' cell or list.
      Unlike 'alist, this function will return nil if given an empty list
      See also [[atom]] [[alist]] [[dotted]] [[isa]] [[cons]] [[list]] 
  nil
  arc> help.alist
  [fn]  (alist x)
   Return true if argument is a possibly empty list
      Unlike 'acons, this function returns t when given an empty list
      See also [[atom]] [[acons]] [[dotted]] [[isa]] [[cons]] [[list]] 
  nil
  arc> help.afn
  [mac] (afn parms . body)
   Creates a function which calls itself with the name `self'.
      See also [[fn]] [[rfn]] [[aif]] [[awhen]] [[aand]] 
  nil

Re: What's happening with Arc?

#7

Post by evanrmurphy »

pg wrote: post #2

I'll probably release a new version later this year. Most of the changes will be in news.arc, which is now pretty solid. Maybe I'll actually make an effort to make it installable without having to understand the source.

make it installable without having to understand the source

I wouldn't say that understanding Arc's source is a prerequisite for installation. The problem is more just that the instructions are complex [1].

It would probably help if they were updated to let people know that with arc3.1, you don't have to worry about installing version 372 of MzScheme [2]. (Unless there's some reason why you'd prefer people installed arc3.0.) Navigating their website to download the specific old version of MzScheme is especially confusing since they rebranded as Racket.

This reduces the install and run to (on Ubuntu 10.04):

  $ sudo aptitude install mzscheme
  $ wget http://ycombinator.com/arc/arc3.1.tar
  $ tar -xvf arc3.1.tar
  $ cd arc3.1
  $ mzscheme -f as.scm
---

[1] http://arclanguage.org/install

[2] http://arclanguage.org/item?id=10254

Re: What's happening with Arc?

#8

Post by evanrmurphy »

ygd wrote: post #4
pg wrote: post #2

I'll probably release a new version later this year. Most of the changes will be in news.arc, which is now pretty solid. Maybe I'll actually make an effort to make it installable without having to understand the source.

I've always been meaning to check it out, but the barrier of entry has been too high (likely due to my laziness). IMO: an installer would be a good idea, availability on aptitude would be the best.

5 shell commands to install and run Arc using aptitude: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1833416

Re: What's happening with Arc?

#9

Post by jackowayed »

Why would I use Arc?

In particular, I've been playing with Clojure and enjoying that. It's still a Lisp, so it has a lot of the advantages that Arc has. In addition, it has some cool unique features and almost certainly has more comprehensive libraries thanks to being able to use Java libraries. What advantages does Arc have over Clojure?

I'm not trying to be mean to Arc lovers and call it a useless language. I genuinely want an excuse to give Arc a try.

Re: What's happening with Arc?

#10

Post by metamemetics »

evanrmurphy wrote: post #6
metamemetics wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any thoughts on a built in help operator mapping other operators to docstrings?

There is one in Anarki: http://github.com/nex3/arc/tree/master/help/ Usage examples: arc> help.acons [fn] (acons x) Determines if `x' is a `cons' cell or list. Unlike 'alist, this function will return nil if given an empty list See also [[atom]] [[alist]] [[dotted]] [[isa]] [[cons]] [[list]] nil arc> help.alist [fn] (alist x) Return true if argument is a possibly empty list Unlike 'acons, this function returns t when…

Btw I enjoyed your http://www.tryarc.org website, great job.

It needs a big GET ARC button at the bottom though. Linking either to the canonical install page on arclanguage.org or the community anarki git repo. The decision is yours as to which one, no pressure ;)

[ The site is an amazing piece of advertising, but it's not closing the sale :/ ]

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