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I keep bouncing off the Scheme language

sicpers.info

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Re: I keep bouncing off the Scheme language

#11
post #9
post #4

Scheme was invented as a consequence of Sussman & Steele’s discovery that lexical closures in the lambda calculus had essentially an identical implementation to a fully elaborated version of Hewitt’s actor model. I do wonder what a language with the same “taste” and minimalism as Scheme but embracing the actor model would look like. Erlang? Even better if someone could figure out how to harmonize them in the same lan…

> I do wonder what a language with the same “taste” and minimalism as Scheme but embracing the actor model would look like. There is Spritely Goblins: https://spritely.institute/goblins/

A 98-page PDF on language design for distributed objects in a capability security model? Made my day, thanks!

Re: I keep bouncing off the Scheme language

#12
Strange that the post makes no mention of the Little Schemer series, because teaching you to "think Scheme" is exactly what those books do. Some people are put off by the weird style (combination of children's book visuals and socratic logic problem presentation), but they work!

Re: I keep bouncing off the Scheme language

#13
There's something very ironic about an article about bouncing off Scheme on a website called 'SICPers'. OT: I think I'm pretty decent at thinking in Scheme, although I don't quite have the hang of continuations. That said, because I like type declarations I use Common Lisp, which allows me to bounce between a more Scheme-like style and a more Assembly-like style however I see fit.

Re: I keep bouncing off the Scheme language

#14
I think that it helps a lot to have a daily practice of using a language for small things.

In much that same way that many people do the daily wordle or crossword, I do the daily leetcode.

I flip a coin and solve it first in either C++ or Python, then re-write my solution in the other one.

Usually it takes me around 20 minutes to solve it in either language, and 5 minutes to re-solve it in either language.

Recently I decided to start learning emacs lisp. This is an imperative lisp dialect that’s pretty different from scheme, but I think that the particular language doesn’t matter much for this process. I could a bit biased because I do have prior experience with SML and scheme.

I started re-solving the problems a third time in emacs lisp. And I’m still learning but I’ve felt my comfort with the language increase over time, and I expect that if I continue doing this then I will eventually reach parity with C++ and Python.

Currently it takes me about 20 minutes to re-solve a problem in emacs lisp, because I usually have to read documentation and/or look up something new.

Re: I keep bouncing off the Scheme language

#15
I studied Scheme in CS around 1990, but also found it hard to grasp and to apply to real world problems. And all those parethesis, brrr... :) The idea that "everying is an object and classes are nothing special" is neat, but it does not fit the way people (okay, I) think about real world problems. So I stuck with Smalltalk/OOP and am stil there :-).

Re: I keep bouncing off the Scheme language

#17
post #14

I think that it helps a lot to have a daily practice of using a language for small things. In much that same way that many people do the daily wordle or crossword, I do the daily leetcode. I flip a coin and solve it first in either C++ or Python, then re-write my solution in the other one. Usually it takes me around 20 minutes to solve it in either language, and 5 minutes to re-solve it in either language. Recently I…

[deleted]

Re: I keep bouncing off the Scheme language

#18
You can write entirely imperative OO code in Scheme, it just has syntax that's weirder than you're used to. Not everything has to be functional abstractions, syntax macros, or twisty mazes of call/cc. If SICP is too abstruse, give HTDP a try, but if you know other languages, you already know most of scheme.

Re: I keep bouncing off the Scheme language

#19
scheme is great, but the dx of some implementations is not. i’m on guile scheme due to guix, and frankly, i’m hating it a quite bit.

stack traces are esoteric and error messages entirely unhelpful,

documentation masquerades as deep but is indeed inconsistent and prosaic, mixing styles of reference, explanation, and how-to willy-nilly, (compare with Dybvig’s The Scheme Programming Language, which is focused and consistent, and it takes no time to get your answers; there’s just no method to guile and guix manuals), i hate it big time,

there’s big gaps in documentation (especially with Guix – there’s literally zero information about `define-record-type*` which is used everywhere in its codebase; admittedly, not scheme related, but still),

the cli requires too much memorization,

most modules are not named, but numbered, ie, instead of something like `(base list)`, you get `(srfi srfi-1)`, so you need to either memorize, or go through the info pages for each procedure you need to import, which means you also need to know the exact names for the procedures you need beforehand,

there’s like 4 ways to define a record, each with a different feature set and incompatibilities,

etc.

these are the reasons i find it hard to use.

to respond to the content of the article, the different neurotype idea is off, because scheme allows you very well to express sequences of operations; the ecosystem of APIs may not cater to this tho. although if it was rephrased into “scheme emphasizes symbolic manipulations, as opposed to operating a machine”, i would agree

Re: I keep bouncing off the Scheme language

#20
post #4

Scheme was invented as a consequence of Sussman & Steele’s discovery that lexical closures in the lambda calculus had essentially an identical implementation to a fully elaborated version of Hewitt’s actor model. I do wonder what a language with the same “taste” and minimalism as Scheme but embracing the actor model would look like. Erlang? Even better if someone could figure out how to harmonize them in the same lan…

In terms of modern concurrent actors, in addition to Spritely Goblins there is also Termite, a restricted Scheme with Erlang-like concurrency semantics that now comes with the Gambit distribution.
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