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RacketCon 2022

con.racket-lang.org

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Re: RacketCon 2022

#21

Post by legerdemain »

radnom wrote: post #9
kaesar14 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just think functional based program is a bit harder to reason about for newbies. Programming did not click for me until the third class in the track where we learned object oriented design. Pretty common experience in the program as well, scared away a lot of people who took fundies 1 to explore the major or to minor in CS.

I took the class as a freshman, taught by Matthias, and then was a grader/lab helper the following year. (Oh gosh, this is all 15 years ago now) In my observation, it was those with previous java/c++ experience that couldn't let that go who struggled the most. Total newbies were a blank slate and more likely to 'get it', assuming they have the abilities needed to succeed in a CS program.

Matthias Felleisen co-wrote a book on Java, elegant uses of class-based inheritance, and elegant design patterns.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262561150/a-little-java-a-few-p...

Re: RacketCon 2022

#22

Post by rychco »

gus_massa wrote: post #17
rychco wrote: post #10

What’s special about Racket? What makes it stand out compared to Lisp/SBCL/Scheme? I recall a while back John Carmack tweeted about writing some project in Racket & it’s been vaguely on my radar lately.

Until a few years ago Racket was a dialect of Scheme. In addition to the main language "Racket" it also supports R5R and R6R in the standard distribution, and also R7Rs using a user maintained package. There are like 20 of additional languages as part of the distribution. Some are variants, like "Typed Racket" that is like racket with static types. Other languages that are more/completely different and/or almost unus…

Thanks for such a detailed response! At a glance it seems pretty interesting, and the performance is quite good too. I’ll have to toy with it for my next project.

Re: RacketCon 2022

#23

Post by CyberDildonics »

nequo wrote: post #19
CyberDildonics wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst possible programming scenario is usually being locked in to an internal hacked together proprietary language. I don't think trying to make a new language for every program is a good idea and is almost the polar opposite of what I would consider good programming.

It lets you create languages like Pie which is designed to teach others about dependent types: https://thelittletyper.com/

That seems like an extreme niche use that isn't suited for general purpose programming.

Re: RacketCon 2022

#24

Post by nequo »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #23
nequo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It lets you create languages like Pie which is designed to teach others about dependent types: https://thelittletyper.com/

That seems like an extreme niche use that isn't suited for general purpose programming.

Racket's main use case is pedagogy and PL research.

Re: RacketCon 2022

#25

Post by Decabytes »

rychco wrote: post #10

What’s special about Racket? What makes it stand out compared to Lisp/SBCL/Scheme? I recall a while back John Carmack tweeted about writing some project in Racket & it’s been vaguely on my radar lately.

1. Discord and discourse forum make it easy to get answers and search for solutions

2. Language is evolving in both a low level (Racket on Chez) and high level way (zuo make replacement)

3. Package manager built into the language

4 Gradually typed sister language

5. Compiled

6. Binaries for multiple Oses for easy download

7. Built in GUI library

8. Drracket for an all in one text editor and language solution.

Some schemes/lisps have some of these, but they are either bolted on after the fact, or not widely adopted in that community.

Re: RacketCon 2022

#26

Post by e12e »

antipurist wrote: post #13
rychco wrote: post #10

What’s special about Racket? What makes it stand out compared to Lisp/SBCL/Scheme? I recall a while back John Carmack tweeted about writing some project in Racket & it’s been vaguely on my radar lately.

Lisps let you define macros. Racket lets you define languages. https://docs.racket-lang.org/guide/languages.html https://docs.racket-lang.org/guide/more-hash-lang.html Example of a language-in-racket: https://github.com/soegaard/minipascal/tree/master

Not to mention arc/anarki (hn is/was written in arc - anarki comes with a "news" example app/forum):

https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/tree/HEAD#readme

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