Any comments on how instructive HTDP is with Racket for introducing a non-programmer to coding?
Racket
31–40 of 53 posts
Re: Racket
#32Its cool, but I wonder just how many high-level web oriented languages we really need...
Homo sapiens is pretty cool too, but I wonder how many walking talking apes we really need... Random mutation + diversity + natural selection isnt yielding working, practical results only for biological organisms. You sound like we should simply take the first best anything we run into and than stick with it unconditionally for the sole purpose of not having to spend time looking over the wall. Do you at least rememb…
Do you at least remember the day back then when you lost your adventuresomeness?
You could have easily made the point without being snarky and insulting.
Re: Racket
#33Languages aside, I don't think the world needs another VM. Can't people just target an existing one? Please?
Your comment seems to imply that there is already a rich ecosystem of VMs in use, but there aren't really. Basically, there's the Java VM, which is bad for functional languages, and there's Mono, which is not really ideal for Scheme either, nor very popular except that it allows compatibility with .NET.
At any rate, I'm pretty sure PLT Scheme predates both Java and the CLI, so you'd be better off slagging Microsoft for their duplication.
Re: Racket
#34Its cool, but I wonder just how many high-level web oriented languages we really need...
I don't think I would call scheme "web-oriented".
It may not be common to refer to it as such, but the PLT Scheme guys see the web as the killer app for Scheme's continuations:
http://www.cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Papers/Published/kh...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation#Continuations_in_W...
Re: Racket
#35We really need to give kudos to these guys. They have been persistent for years in developing a high quality Scheme, and then taking it to the next level. PLT Scheme is practical in its library design, flexible in its reader, meticulous in its documentation and fast as an execution engine. Making a language fast and well-documented is a thankless task. It's nothing short of a herculean accomplishment for these guys t…
so so so true. Whats doubly impressive is that many of the core active members are full time academics who are able to frame their research so that they can both spend their time improving their PLT/Racket, and framing their work as also being genuinely top notch research!
Re: Racket
#36I love seeing framework or language homepages with good copy and design like this one. The best ones make you want to stop what you're doing in your favorite language and go code something with the new hotness right now .
Unfortunately, it doesn't explain to the newcomer why this language is worth learning. I was expecting some kind of feature comparison or "Why another language?" article.
(That's a first impression. Then I read the comments here, and discovered it's based on PLT Scheme, which at least tell s me a little about what to expect.)
Re: Racket
#37Its cool, but I wonder just how many high-level web oriented languages we really need...
Homo sapiens is pretty cool too, but I wonder how many walking talking apes we really need... Random mutation + diversity + natural selection isnt yielding working, practical results only for biological organisms. You sound like we should simply take the first best anything we run into and than stick with it unconditionally for the sole purpose of not having to spend time looking over the wall. Do you at least rememb…
Human evolution is more like looking at revisions of a single programming language. The basic elements remained consistent, but changed subtly over millions of years in an iterative fashion... if you pick life as a whole though I agree with your analogy, but this is very much a small cautious, iterative improvement and it offers me nothing I can't already get.
I enjoy the rational argument you give here, but I think you went too far by attacking my personality and misconstruing my words. The opposite of many is few, not one, and that was the impetus for my comment - right now "we" all seem to be focused on developing a tiny little area of programming instead of the whole and the effects are obvious if you have to work with it - towering technology stacks of crumbly code that are unstable through bad design and a lack of low-level mentality at the high-level - so bad they give Apple a pretty solid excuse to ban Flash on iPhone.
As for my "adventuresomeness" I'm comfortable with all the major paradigms and languages and work at every level, from encoded instruction bytes up to things like SQL/XSLT with C/Haskell/Fortran/Java/Ruby/Python/whatever inbetween and a wide variety of platforms (phones/games consoles/PDAs/calculators/PCs). I learned three languages in the last month - only two of which were through necessity at work and I am happy to make radical comments which express my opinions and not turn away from them when they clash with flavour of the month/year/decade... and thats just programming. I dunno what you call adventuresome but from your comment, I'd imagine its probably a lot less adventurous than me... but then I might be misconstruing words and attacking your personality then. :P
Re: Racket
#38Languages aside, I don't think the world needs another VM. Can't people just target an existing one? Please?
Your comment seems to imply that there is already a rich ecosystem of VMs in use, but there aren't really. Basically, there's the Java VM, which is bad for functional languages, and there's Mono, which is not really ideal for Scheme either, nor very popular except that it allows compatibility with .NET. At any rate, I'm pretty sure PLT Scheme predates both Java and the CLI, so you'd be better off slagging Microsoft f…
Re: Racket
#39I love seeing framework or language homepages with good copy and design like this one. The best ones make you want to stop what you're doing in your favorite language and go code something with the new hotness right now .
Unfortunately, it doesn't explain to the newcomer why this language is worth learning. I was expecting some kind of feature comparison or "Why another language?" article. (That's a first impression. Then I read the comments here, and discovered it's based on PLT Scheme, which at least tell s me a little about what to expect.)
It's not just based on PLT Scheme, it is PLT Scheme, rebranded.
Re: Racket
#40Any comments on how instructive HTDP is with Racket for introducing a non-programmer to coding?
I did that years ago and found it to be very useful.