Systems Programming with Racket

#1

Post by shawndumas » Mon, May 02, 2011, 3:06 PM UTC

Systems Programming with Racket
docs.racket-lang.org

Re: Systems Programming with Racket

#2

Post by alexk7 » Mon, May 02, 2011, 3:48 PM UTC

I noticed that the expression "Systems Programming" now seems to mean a much higher level that it used to. In my mind, writing a web server is still an "application" and is not equivalent to, for example, writing an operating system. The Go language is also claiming to be a "Systems Programming Language" but I won't use it for what I call "Systems Programming"...

Re: Systems Programming with Racket

#3

Post by icey » Mon, May 02, 2011, 3:54 PM UTC

alexk7 wrote: post #2

I noticed that the expression "Systems Programming" now seems to mean a much higher level that it used to. In my mind, writing a web server is still an "application" and is not equivalent to, for example, writing an operating system. The Go language is also claiming to be a "Systems Programming Language" but I won't use it for what I call "Systems Programming"...

What do you call "Systems Programming"?

(I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but you haven't provided a definition of what you consider systems programming.)

Re: Systems Programming with Racket

#4

Post by joshhart » Mon, May 02, 2011, 3:58 PM UTC

icey wrote: post #3

alexk7 wrote: post #2

I noticed that the expression "Systems Programming" now seems to mean a much higher level that it used to. In my mind, writing a web server is still an "application" and is not equivalent to, for example, writing an operating system. The Go language is also claiming to be a "Systems Programming Language" but I won't use it for what I call "Systems Programming"...

What do you call "Systems Programming"? (I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but you haven't provided a definition of what you consider systems programming.)

I'm not the parent, but I usually consider anything requiring fairly intimate knowledge of the hardware and operating system "systems programming", such as writing a database.

Others seem to refer to it as anything that could be considered part of the OS, like writing drivers.

Re: Systems Programming with Racket

#5

Post by rauljara » Mon, May 02, 2011, 4:03 PM UTC

Slightly off-topic: ever since I started working my way through Land of Lisp a while ago, I decided I would spend some time trying to seriously learn a lisp dialect. I was thinking that dialect would be Clojure because of its compatibility with Java and its community. But can anyone speak for Racket? I couldn't find a "why racket?" section on their homepage.

Re: Systems Programming with Racket

#6

Post by xiaomai » Mon, May 02, 2011, 4:14 PM UTC

rauljara wrote: post #5

Slightly off-topic: ever since I started working my way through Land of Lisp a while ago, I decided I would spend some time trying to seriously learn a lisp dialect. I was thinking that dialect would be Clojure because of its compatibility with Java and its community. But can anyone speak for Racket? I couldn't find a "why racket?" section on their homepage.

I love racket. It's basically scheme with a bunch of extra goodness (libraries, language features) added on top.

You may have heard of it before it was renamed (it used to be known as PLT Scheme).

I've just started working through Land of Lisp as well. I find myself wishing I were writing Racket instead of Common Lisp, but it's entirely possible that's just because I'm more familiar with Racket/scheme.

Re: Systems Programming with Racket

#7

Post by mquander » Mon, May 02, 2011, 4:18 PM UTC

rauljara wrote: post #5

Slightly off-topic: ever since I started working my way through Land of Lisp a while ago, I decided I would spend some time trying to seriously learn a lisp dialect. I was thinking that dialect would be Clojure because of its compatibility with Java and its community. But can anyone speak for Racket? I couldn't find a "why racket?" section on their homepage.

* Great non-emacs Lisp IDE, powerful, cross-platform, and easy for newbies (but emacs works fine too)

* Tons of interesting language extensions -- any Scheme you have ever thought of -- implementations of laziness, static typing, logic programming, FRP

* Very good online documentation

* Great libraries for lots of things, combined with really easy online package management @ http://planet.racket-lang.org/

* Go look at all the cool things it does, don't they look fun? http://docs.racket-lang.org/

Re: Systems Programming with Racket

#8

Post by rwl » Mon, May 02, 2011, 4:21 PM UTC

rauljara wrote: post #5

Slightly off-topic: ever since I started working my way through Land of Lisp a while ago, I decided I would spend some time trying to seriously learn a lisp dialect. I was thinking that dialect would be Clojure because of its compatibility with Java and its community. But can anyone speak for Racket? I couldn't find a "why racket?" section on their homepage.

Disclaimer: I don't know a ton about this. But one of the often-cited reasons for learning a Lisp is the power of Lisp macros for creating domain-specific languages. My understanding is that one unique feature of Racket is how it takes this idea to the next level: not only does it offer a powerful hygienic macro system; Racket also thinks of "languages" as libraries. The Racket folks have built a platform where it is easy to define non-trivial (and even non-Lispy) languages, and freely incorporate code written in those languages into other Racket programs.

See: http://docs.racket-lang.org/guide/languages.html

Re: Systems Programming with Racket

#9

Post by rwl » Mon, May 02, 2011, 4:23 PM UTC

xiaomai wrote: post #6

rauljara wrote: post #5

Slightly off-topic: ever since I started working my way through Land of Lisp a while ago, I decided I would spend some time trying to seriously learn a lisp dialect. I was thinking that dialect would be Clojure because of its compatibility with Java and its community. But can anyone speak for Racket? I couldn't find a "why racket?" section on their homepage.

I love racket. It's basically scheme with a bunch of extra goodness (libraries, language features) added on top. You may have heard of it before it was renamed (it used to be known as PLT Scheme). I've just started working through Land of Lisp as well. I find myself wishing I were writing Racket instead of Common Lisp, but it's entirely possible that's just because I'm more familiar with Racket/scheme.

I am also more familiar with Racket and Scheme, but was considering working through Land of Lisp. Do the code and problems in the book lend themselves to translation into other languages? That is, do you think one could learn both CL and Racket fairly well by working through the book first in CL, then translating to Racket?

Re: Systems Programming with Racket

#10

Post by pama » Mon, May 02, 2011, 4:41 PM UTC

rauljara wrote: post #5

Slightly off-topic: ever since I started working my way through Land of Lisp a while ago, I decided I would spend some time trying to seriously learn a lisp dialect. I was thinking that dialect would be Clojure because of its compatibility with Java and its community. But can anyone speak for Racket? I couldn't find a "why racket?" section on their homepage.

The Hacker News site runs on arc, which is a language implemented in mzscheme, which in turn is a subset of Racket.